


Tangled Up and Blue

by JoanWilder



Series: Fatal Attractions [2]
Category: The Streets of San Francisco
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Drama & Romance, F/M, Kidnapping, Missing Persons, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Police corruption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2018-01-26
Packaged: 2018-11-08 01:03:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 54
Words: 191,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11070813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoanWilder/pseuds/JoanWilder
Summary: Part Two.  Set immediately after Pretty Little Jinx.  Mike finds himself having to deal with a new inspector who doesn't seem to play well with others during his investigation into Amy's disappearance.  Steve and Mike later embark on a 1500-mile trip in search of Amy and their suspect, her mother Margaret.  Steve then finds himself in a battle for his life.





	1. Chapter 1

_**Tuesday, April 30, 1974, Morning** _

Four members of the Homicide Division sat in an interview room patiently waiting for a meeting to begin. No one was sure what was the purpose of the meeting, but when Lieutenant Stone called after hours and told you to come, you didn't ask why.

A bulletin board had been set up in the room, making everyone wonder just how big of a case they were about to get into.

"You don't suppose this has anything to do with Steve's girlfriend, do you?" Sergeant Norm Haseejian wondered out loud.

"Why would Mike call us all in like this for a missing person?" Inspector Bill Tanner replied. "He probably kicked the case over to them already."

"I bet it's about the IA investigation into Inspector Keller," Inspector Stilwell, the new kid on the block, surmised.

"Stop spreading rumors, Kid. You'll just make a lot of enemies that way," Norm warned the man who, at twenty-nine years of age, still wasn't the youngest member of Homicide - that distinction belonged to Steve Keller. Steve had several years of experience on the man, though it would be hard to tell from Inspector Stilwell's cocky attitude.

"It's not a rumor," Stilwell insisted. "I overheard two captains talking about it yesterday."

"Eavesdropping on superiors ain't gonna gain you any friends either," Norm warned.

"Have you even met Steve?" Inspector Lee Lessing asked the new guy.

"I've heard of him," Stilwell said. "Apparently he's a real hot shot with a temper...and a thing for victims."

The other three in the room glared at Stilwell. He acted all innocent. "Did I hear wrong? I mean, he was seeing this girl who's gone missing, no? Even regular citizens know that's against regulation."

Bill had to keep Norm from jumping out of his chair and decking the guy. Stilwell had been around only a week, most of which was spent with Devitt and other higher-ups learning the ropes. He'd only been introduced to everyone in Homicide the day before, and his egotistical demeanor endeared him to no one.

"You might want to see a doctor about getting that foot taken out of your mouth," Norm grumbled.

The comment went over Stilwell's head. "Look, I'm sure he's a nice enough guy and all, but he's apparently not too bright. The rules clearly state that fraternizing with suspects is grounds for suspension and/or dismissal. I can think of at least five Rules of Conduct he broke."

"Please, enlighten us all on the exact wording of the Rules of Conduct," Mike Stone said, coming in the room, followed by Sergeant Drake from Missing Persons and Inspector Perez from Narcotics. "Or do you mind if we get right down to business?"

Everyone, even Stilwell, could tell that Mike was not in any mood to mess around, so they snapped to attention and waited for their briefing.

Mike stood up by the bulletin board. "As you know, the victim in the Paul Carpenter case is now a victim of another crime."

Mike stuck copies of Margaret and Amy Johnson's DMV photos on the bulletin board. "This is our suspect, Margaret Johnson," he said, pointing to Margaret's picture. "She's the victim's mother. We know that yesterday morning, Mrs. Johnson sent a lawyer, who happens to practice at her deceased husband's firm in Los Angeles, to the hospital with a Power of Attorney."

He hung up a copy of the document on the board. "This states that Margaret Johnson can take over her daughter Amy's affairs if she is found to be suicidal, delusional, so on and so forth. These behaviors were pretty well documented with the medical staff at General, so this attorney, Bryan Palermo, had Amy loaded in an ambulance. However, we suspect that Amy was being drugged with PCP, which caused her to have episodes exactly like those needed to enact the POA. That would make this a case of kidnapping."

Mike hung Bryan's DMV photo underneath Margaret's. "The ambulance was supposed to be headed to San Francisco International. The trio of Margaret, Bryan, and Amy were to board a private jet bound for Los Angeles at 10:30 A.M. The ambulance never arrived and the plane never left. We've talked with the pilot who never heard anything from either Margaret or Bryan."

"Do we know where the ambulance ended up?"

Inspector Drake stepped in and shook his head. "There is an APB out for it and its driver. So far no one has seen it."

Stilwell spoke up. "I don't mean to be blunt, but why are we being briefed about a case that's clearly not a homicide? Don't tell me this is a homicide case simply because of who's involved. That's a clear violation…"

"I'll violate you, you little…" Norm interrupted. Bill once again put a hand on his shoulder to keep the man from doing something he'd regret.

"I know you're not under me technically, but I'd watch how you speak to superiors," Sergeant Drake told Stilwell, disliking his attitude. "The truth is, this is an official Missing Person's case. However, we're not uncertain that it's also not a Homicide case. Since Lieutenant Stone is familiar with the parties involved, I have asked him and his team to assist me and my team."

"What do you mean, you're not sure it's not a homicide?" Lessing asked.

Mike took the floor once more. "Yesterday afternoon, Steve got a letter in the mail. It was a suspected suicide note from Amy." He dug through some papers until he found a copy he had made of the letter. He handed it to Lessing. "The original is in the lab right now. I'm hoping to find out just who had contact with this letter. The envelope had no stamp, so obviously someone hand-delivered it to Steve's apartment. We dusted his mailbox for prints, but results will take time."

As Lessing read the letter, his eyes grew wide. "Damn," he muttered, handing the letter to Tanner. "How's Steve holding up?"

Mike shrugged. "He'll tell you he's fine. I'll tell you it's the alcohol talking."

As Bill Tanner read the letter, he asked, "Are we even sure this is Amy's handwriting? What if Margaret faked a suicide note to throw us off?"

"Steve swears it's her writing," Mike said sadly. "We haven't gotten ahold of any comparison though."

"I'm working on a search warrant right now to get access to her apartment. There has to be a writing sample in there," Drake shrugged.

"You think her mom would kill her?" Norm asked Mike. "She is a bit...you know…"

He shook his head. "At this point, I'm not putting anything past a woman who drugs her own daughter."

"Allegedly," muttered Stilwell. "Am I wrong in saying that we have no evidence that she was involved in the drugging? You haven't presented any."

Mike glared at the kid. "We're working on that as we speak." He turned back to the group. "What we have so far is not much, granted, but we have a few leads. I think a lot of questions will be answered once we find the ambulance and the driver. Same when we find the lawyer. The lab has the letter. It also has some security footage from the hospital that we think shows Margaret."

Mike turned to Perez. "What I need from you is anything you can provide on PCP pushers in town. I'm assuming she got the stuff here as there's no indication that she left town after Amy was admitted to the hospital."

"Mike, I know every pusher in the city and what they push. I'll find which one of them sold her, or her partner there," Perez said, pointing to Bryan Palermo's picture, "the stuff. You want the liquid PCP, right?"

Mike nodded.

"I'll get on it right away," Perez said, leaving the room.

"What do you need from us, Mike?" Tanner asked.

"I need anything you can get me on Margaret Johnson. R & I didn't have much on her, so we don't have much to go on. I want everything we can find on her past, present, and future. If she has connections anywhere besides Los Angeles, I want to know them! I also want you guys to keep an eye on the search for that ambulance."

The three senior inspectors nodded. Stilwell didn't move.

"Mike...I hate to ask this...but do you think it _could_ be a suicide?" Norm asked sheepishly.

Mike sighed. "Right now, I'm going with evidence. We have no body, so that's a positive. You should probably check to see if anyone reported any bridge jumpers or any other kinds of suicides. You know...just in case. She wouldn't have taken to being in her mother's presence very well; she was scared to death of the woman."

"Why don't you guys hook up with some of my guys while you're doing your searches?" Drake suggested. "Together you can pool your resources."

All nodded and rose to their feet. One by one they left the room until Mike and Stilwell were the only ones left. Mike wasted no time in talking with the cocky inspector.

"Look, if you have a problem with any of this, there are plenty of reports that need typing," Mike said, making it known through his tone of voice that Stilwell's insolence was not appreciated. "I brought you into this because I thought it would be a good way to ease you into cases, but if you're too high and mighty to be involved…"

"I'm just surprised at all the leniency that goes on around here, that's all. I mean, all of you are a little close to this, but you're on the case anyway."

"First of all, you don't know how close or not close we are; you don't know any of us. Second, we can remain impartial...can you? Can you keep your opinions out of cases? Because so far I haven't seen that. You've been here one day and you're already acting like judge and jury. The only place that's going to get you is back to traffic duty. In this job, you're either with us...or you're writing parking tickets. Your choice. I'd choose wisely."

Stilwell took a deep breath. He felt there was so much wrong going on around him, but he wanted to keep his job and prove to his father, the police commissioner's fishing buddy, that he could be more than a street man.

"I'm with you," he uttered quietly.

"Wise decision. Now go across the hall and meet with the inspectors in Missing Persons. And play nice," Mike warned.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Tuesday, April 30, 1974, Evening** _

Steve sat on his living room couch staring at the television. It wasn't on, but he watched it like it was. What he was actually watching was the past week of his life play out like a film in his head while music played in the background.

It had fallen together so perfectly despite the abnormal beginning and numerous roadblocks along the way. For the first time in his life, he'd found the one - the soulmate everyone seemed to constantly be on the lookout for. Then, as quickly as she appeared, she was gone into the wind as if she'd never even existed. He began to wonder if he had dreamt her, but the suitcase she left behind reminded him that she was indeed real.

There really had been a Princess Amelia who fell in love with a prince named Stefan, and for twelve days, they lived a fairy tale. It had been the best week of her life she'd said, so how come she was gone? They could have had the happy ending Amelia and Stefan had if she'd given it a chance - if she'd had faith in him to get her out of this latest mess. But then he shouldn't have let her get into the predicament in the first place.

As he watched the film of his week flash before his eyes, he picked out all the times where he could have done something differently - done something more to protect Amy. He didn't take into consideration that some things were out of his control or that he was facing off against a couple of psychopaths - everything that went wrong was his fault. He was the cop and the boyfriend, and both roles made him the protector - a role he felt he failed. That's why the department was punishing him after all. Internal Affairs wouldn't be on his back if he'd done everything he could to keep her safe.

Despite all this, he still had a good feeling that she was alive and was doing everything she could to contact him. The phone was never far away because he expected her to call and tell him she'd somehow escaped and to please come get her. She wouldn't just give up and leave him; she loved him and she had to know he loved her. No, she was out there, fighting to get back to him.

Earlier, he'd gotten dressed, gone out and, using his badge, gained entrance into Amy and Karen's apartment. No one had been in there since the day he and Mike had rescued Karen, and the scene was the same as they had left it. The pools of blood were still on the floors of the dining and living rooms. Steve had assumed it would have been cleaned up by now, so when he walked in and took in the scene, it took his breath away.

"Who cleans up something like this anyway?" the manager asked Steve after letting him into the apartment.

Steve shrugged. "Sometimes it's up to the owner of the property to clean it up." He stood and stared at the blood.

"Oh great! They're not going to be happy about this! I mean, you can't get dried blood out of carpet. And does it come out of hardwood floors? I never thought these girls would be trouble, but…"

Steve looked up and glared at the manager.

The man got the hint. "You're right...I mean, it's not like she asked for it…" He noticed Steve was still glaring at him, so he quickly changed the subject. "Are they both...are they doing better?"

Steve nodded. "Yeah, they're fine," he muttered.

"Good, good," the man said quickly.

"I won't be long, and I'll lock up when I leave," Steve said, attempting to get the manager to leave him alone.

"Oh, take as long as you need!" the man said, still trying to make up for what he said earlier. He saw Steve wasn't paying attention to him, so he slowly and quietly backed out the door and closed it behind him.

Once the manager was gone, Steve took his eyes off the blood and looked around the living room. He hadn't spent a large amount of time in the place, but he'd been there enough for it to hold sentimental value...and anxiety. Everywhere he looked, there was some memory of him and Amy being in that spot together. Sitting on the sofa, eating dinner at the table, sharing a soda in the kitchen… Steve could feel the knot in his stomach tighten, so he wandered into Amy's bedroom.

He felt a need to be close to something of hers in order to feel close to her. It was the whole reason he'd lied his way into her apartment in the first place. Walking into her bedroom, he felt a slight calm come over him, like enough of her presence was in the room to make him feel better.

He looked around the room. It wasn't spotless, but it was straight. Amy had a pile of books and unopened mail sitting on the floor in the corner. The bed remained unmade from the night she took off in a hurry. The closet door was in the same slightly-open position Steve had left it in after he'd grabbed clothes for her. The room sat there as if it were patiently waiting for its occupant to come back and live where she'd left off. It didn't seem to know what had happened.

The humanization Steve gave to the room did little to ward off his tears. He sat on the edge of Amy's bed and allowed himself to fall back and let his tears flow. The day before, after he'd gotten the letter, he hadn't allowed himself to feel anything - no tears, no anger, nothing. Any time emotions would threaten to surface, he'd drown them with whatever alcohol he could find. Now though, sitting in Amy's bedroom with no liquor in sight, Steve had no other choice. He knew Amy would be upset at him for shutting himself off and trying to drink the pain away, so since he was in her presence, so to speak, he let go. Grabbing a pillow from the head of the bed, he squeezed it tight and grieved over the woman he missed.

Several minutes later, he admonished himself for getting carried away and sat up. He didn't want to leave just yet though, so he looked around her room. On the top shelf of the closet sat what looked like old photo albums, so he stood up and grabbed them. Sitting back down on the bed, he spent the next half hour looking through old photos of the woman he loved. Seeing her infectious smile made him feel good; this was the Amy he wanted to remember - the one he longed to bring out, though he wasn't sure of his success.

The pictures seemed to span most of her childhood; there were plenty of photographs of her, or her and her father, but Steve noticed that there didn't seem to be too many with Amy and Margaret. The couple he did see seemed staged and forced, almost like they didn't want to be in each other's presence. He really wished he could ask Amy about it, but he told himself that it would just be a matter of time before he could - she'd be back soon.

Deciding to take the albums with him, Steve looked around the room again for anything he could examine to get an insight into Amy. Part of him felt ashamed that he didn't know more about her already. As in love with her as he was, he felt he should know her better than she knows herself, but he felt there were a lot of things missing. Over in the corner sat a record player on a stand. Underneath was a large stack of records. Curious as to her taste in music, he went over and started looking through the stack, noticing that her musical tastes were wide and varied, although love songs seemed to take up a large majority of the songs. Thinking listening to what she listened to while looking through her life in pictures would bring him closer to her, he grabbed all the records and took them with him as well.

Now he sat in his apartment drinking a scotch on the rocks and reminiscing, listening to these songs on a continuous loop. It made him feel better, though it was ultimately pushing his depression closer to the surface.

* * *

After work, Mike decided to head to Steve's and check on the boy. He'd been in such a bad way the day before that Mike spent all day with half his mind on his work and the other half on Steve. There was sadly nothing new to report as far as the case, but he hoped the simple fact that there was no confirmation Amy was dead would be enough to keep Steve's head above water.

Norm had asked to come along as he was also worried about his co-worker and friend. Mike thought having people around would be good for Steve's spirits. During the car ride, Norm decided to air his grievances about the new inspector.

"Mike, can I ask you a question? What's with Stilwell? I mean, why did we get stuck with that punk?"

Mike had to chuckle. The man hadn't done much to make himself well-liked in the short time he'd been in Homicide. All day he kept citing rules and questioning procedures. Norm nicknamed him "WARB", or Walking Rule Book. No one liked a new kid fresh off traffic duty coming in and telling them what they were doing wrong, especially when all captains were on board with the joint effort of the case. Most inspectors did a good job of ignoring the pest, but Mike had a feeling that wouldn't last long.

"This really isn't for publication," the lieutenant started, "but I heard he was able to push his way through because his father is one of the commissioner's best friends."

"Great. Nothing like a little nepotism," Norm grumbled. "I swear I'm gonna deck that kid one day."

"You and everyone else. Look, there are two things we can do. We can either make him see our way...or we make life hell for him until he transfers."

"I'm on board with the last option," Norm stated happily.

"I think we should try the first option before we potentially get ourselves into trouble here. It's bad enough having IA down our throats."

Norm nodded knowingly. They both knew the worst was still yet to come in regards to Steve's IAB investigation.

"You think this twerp will be a problem for Steve?" Norm asked after a moment of silence.

Mike looked at him sideways. "What do you mean? Stilwell wasn't even around for that."

"I know, but he's heard all about it, and you know how well he likes his damn rules. I just get this weird vibe off the guy."

"He's harmless I'm sure." Mike paused for a second. "Although, if it makes you feel better, you could always keep an eye on him."

Norm chuckled. "Yeah, it would make me feel better."

* * *

The two arrived at Steve's apartment shortly after six. Mike knocked on the door and again, like the day before, heard nothing.

"Not again," Mike mumbled, worried that Steve had again taken to the bottle. He knocked again. There was still no answer, but he could hear music playing on the other side.

"Steven Keller, open this door!" Mike shouted.

Soon, the door flew open. "Sorry, Mike, I didn't hear you the first time."

Mike looked his partner up and down. Steve looked like he hadn't really slept much, as his eyes were red and there were dark circles underneath. He also looked like he didn't care one bit about his appearance. Even though he'd cleaned up to go to Amy's apartment, his hair was now a mess, he was in pajama bottoms and a wrinkled T-shirt, and he had a nice five o'clock shadow going. The music Mike had heard, "Ain't No Sunshine" by Bill Withers, was blaring throughout the apartment.

"Could you turn that down a little?" Mike asked loudly.

Steve nodded and went to turn off the record. Mike and Norm looked at each other as they entered the apartment.

"That song pretty much says it, don't it?" Norm muttered softly enough that Steve couldn't hear. Mike just nodded.

After stopping the record, Steve turned back to the door. "Oh, hey Norm, I didn't see you. What are you guys doing here?" Steve walked over to his coffee table and started picking up empty glasses.

"Just wanted to see how you were holding up, Buddy Boy," Mike said. "Hangin in there?"

Steve scoffed. "Yeah, why wouldn't I be?" He chuckled. "You act like my dog died or something."

When Mike had left Steve the night before, he was an inconsolable mess, too depressed to think straight and too drunk to care. Now he was the complete opposite.

Norm shrugged. "We were just worried that you'd be taking Amy's disappearance pretty hard, ya know? I mean, with that letter and all…"

"Oh, that? I can explain that."

Mike looked oddly at Steve. "You can?"

Steve nodded. "Sure. See, before we left to go to the courthouse, I told her to write down her feelings so that she could get them out of her head. That letter was probably just that! I mean, it's not like she sent it to me, right?"

Norm shrugged. It seemed logical to him. Mike was a bit more skeptical.

"Then how do you suppose it got here?" he asked.

"Margaret or her lawyer or...who knows? If Margaret saw it, you know she'd want me to see it and think Amy was dead."

"That's true…" Mike muttered. Overall, he just wasn't sure what to think.

"What do you say we all go out for a drink and some dinner, huh? I'm starving, and it looks like you could stand to get out of the house," Norm suggested, looking at Steve.

"I'd love to...but I can't leave," Steve told him.

"Why not?" Mike questioned.

"I have to be here when she calls," Steve replied very sincerely.

Both Mike and Norm looked at Steve, unsure what to say.

"See, she's going to call the minute she gets away from her mother. She'll call me and tell me where she is so I can rescue her. That's why I'm still here and not driving down to LA myself. What if I were out on the road and she called me for help? I have to be here for her."

Mike slowly nodded. What Steve was saying made sense, but he couldn't see how Amy, who was basically immobile, would be able to get away from her mother to even make a call. But, as he'd seen in his quarter century on the job, stranger things had happened. He was hoping that Steve's vision of everything came true.

"That's a good point, Buddy Boy. You let us do the leg work. Say, I have an idea. We haven't had a poker night for a while. What do you say we get the rest of the guys over here, order some pizzas, and make a night of it?"

Norm was already heading for the phone.

Steve shrugged. "I don't know…"

"It'll be fun!" Norm told him, picking up the receiver and dialing a pizza parlor.

Steve nodded reluctantly. "Okay. I suppose one night will be fine."

Mike smiled. He hoped this boys' night would help Steve's mood considerably.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Wednesday, May 1, 1974, Morning** _

Lee Lessing came into Mike's office the next morning. Mike, who was sitting at his desk, looked up from what he was reading.

"You got something?" Mike asked.

"Yes...and no."

Mike sighed. "I don't like that no part."

"I'll start with the yes. The ambulance has been located."

Mike's eyes perked up. "Where?"

"The desert outside Bakersfield."

"What? What the hell is it doing down there?"

Lee shrugged. "That is on the way to LA."

"Sort of...I mean, I'd think if they were headed to Thousand Oaks though, they'd stay closer to the coast. Going by way of Bakersfield would take them too far east."

Lee chuckled. "You know your way around southern California?"

"I've been studying maps, seeing if I could track them. Anyway, what's the no?"

"The ambulance was abandoned. However, I talked with the Kern County Sheriff's Office, and they're going to dust it and all that. They're also going to canvas the area, see if they can find any witnesses. It's a pretty deserted area, but there are a few houses scattered around I guess."

Mike sat back in his chair. "Obviously they're trying to throw us off their track and thought the desert would be a good place. Anything on Margaret yet?"

Lee shook his head. "Bill's working on something though."

"Keep me informed," Mike told Lee before he left the office. Soon after, Sergeant Drake came in.

"How's it going, Mike?" he asked, sitting down in a chair.

"Don't ask. You have anything?"

"I've been calling every hospital from here to San Diego looking for one of the ladies, but I think I found our ambulance driver instead."

"Really? In the hospital?"

Drake nodded. "Gilroy, California. The PD there got a report of a delusional man wandering around the parking lot of a grocery store last night. They pick him up and he's blabbering on about all sorts of trippy stuff, so they admit him to the hospital. They find out he was high on a very potent dose of PCP."

Mike shook his head.

"Yeah, exactly. A detective down there had seen the APB and connected the PCP guy to it. He goes to the hospital this morning and interviews the guy. According to him, after he left General, he was to take the patient to SFO. The nurse had other ideas though, putting a gun to his head and making him drive south."

"Nurse?"

"The nurse that was to escort Amy to LA on the plane. She met the driver at the ambulance garage and he took her with him to General."

"This nurse...did he say what she looked like?"

Drake flipped through his notes. "About 5'6", short blonde hair, white…"

"Margaret Johnson," Mike muttered.

"Is she a nurse?"

"No, but she must like to play one. Pretty sure that's the same disguise she used to get into the hospital to drug Amy. He say anything else?"

"He doesn't remember anything else. No idea how he ended up in Gilroy or where his ambulance is."

Mike grabbed a map that was folded up on the corner of his desk. He unfolded it and started tracing a route with his finger. "Looks like they must have stuck to the 101, at least for a while. I wonder where they veered off to get to Bakersfield?"

Drake shrugged. "There are several roads that cut over east. Hard telling which one they took."

"What about Palermo? Was he there too?"

"Only people in that ambulance were the two women. The guy didn't mention any man."

"Then where the hell could he be?"

Drake shrugged. "One of my guys has been looking into him all morning, calling every place he might be. Nothing. It's like he's a ghost."

Mike shook his head. This case was full of ghosts.

"Right now, our best leads are a witness in Bakersfield, digging into Margaret Johnson's past, and finding this lawyer. Outside of the victim calling us herself of course." Sergeant Drake chuckled like he didn't really even believe that was a possibility.

"Steve's hoping she does just that."

"Isn't it convenient that my main witness to Inspector Keller's misdeeds goes missing?" Sergeant Holloway asked as he stood in Mike's doorway.

"Holloway, it's too close to lunch to be around you," Drake said.

"Nice to see you too, Sergeant," Holloway replied.

Drake stood up. "If I hear anything new, I'll let you know, Mike." He turned to Holloway. "I think I'll go throw up now." He left the office, leaving Mike with his biggest nemesis of the moment.

"So why did you choose now to slither out of your office?" Mike asked.

Holloway sat down, ignoring Mike's insult. "I thought we could have a little conversation about your partner." He pulled out a notepad from his inside jacket pocket.

"Why exactly are you so damn eager to nail Steve? Huh? What did he ever do to you?"

"Why does everyone around here act like I have some sort of personal grudge against Keller? He's no different to me than any other cop here. What I do have a grudge against is guys who think the rules don't apply to them. Steve acted like he could do whatever he wanted during the Paul Carpenter case, and he should be punished accordingly. If he's not, it sets a bad example for everyone else."

"So you want to make him the poster boy for why not to get involved with your cases? Like he's the only one in the history of the department who's ever been accused of such a thing?" Mike chose his words carefully so as not to imply any guilt on Steve's part.

"He may not be...but he's sure as hell the most guilty-looking."

"Opinion or fact, huh, Holloway?"

"Purely evidence-based," he answered, not losing his cool like Mike hoped he would. "But I need more, and that's where you come in."

"What do you think I could possibly tell you that isn't on paper already?" Mike asked, sitting back and crossing his arms over his chest.

"Speaking of reports...I've been reading them and nowhere does it ever say that Amy Johnson was a suspect. Why is that?"

Mike gave Holloway a look that suggested he thought that was the dumbest question another officer could ask. "Perhaps because she never was one?"

"She was never a suspect in the murder of Carl Duncan?" Holloway found this almost impossible to believe.

"I thought we were talking about Paul Carpenter, not Carl Duncan. Anyway, you and I must be reading different reports, _Sergeant_." Mike emphasized the ranking to remind the IAB man just who was the superior officer. "The reports I read stated that Janice Duncan kept insisting that Amy was a suspect, but upon further investigation, no one found a single shred of evidence against her. And as for the case against Paul Carpenter, she was the victim, not the suspect. So your angle that Steve was fraternizing with a suspect...unfounded."

Holloway stared at Mike, unflinching, though Mike could tell deep down that he'd struck a nerve.

"Fraternizing with a victim isn't any less bad, you know," Holloway reminded Mike. He looked down at his notes. "How did you guys get involved in the Carl Duncan murder anyway? Wasn't that case assigned to Inspector Grabowski?"

"He had two other cases ongoing and wasn't interested in pursuing the Duncan case any further. Steve felt that we could do it justice - you know, a new set of eyes on it."

"Inspector Keller was the one who brought the case to you?" Holloway perked up.

Mike didn't answer.

"Why did he do that?"

"I told you. Grabowski didn't have time for it, so Steve took it instead. Happens often around here."

"And his interest in the case had nothing to do with the fact that Amy Johnson was involved?"

Mike kept his poker face, but he knew he'd just been backed into a wall. There really was no way around the fact that it was not a mere coincidence that Steve took over the Carl Duncan case after getting one of the people involved in it shot. Mike knew, even back then, that there was more to it than just Steve looking for something interesting to do, but he could not even hint slightly at that; Holloway would grab onto it like a parasite.

"How did Inspector Keller feel about what happened at the cemetery during the Milani stakeout?"

"Someone got shot. He felt bad that it went down like that - we all would have felt that way."

"Was it more than just guilt at a random citizen getting hurt though? He did go and visit Miss Johnson in the hospital - twice. He took an interest in her case with no other real reason to other than his having just met her...what was his exact reason for wanting the case?"

Holloway was going to push until he got something he wanted. Unfortunately for Mike, he couldn't lie during one of these interrogations or he'd face punishment himself.

"He said this needed to be our case based on what she'd told him in the hospital the first time he went to visit." Mike was doing an Oscar-worthy job of keeping his collected demeanor.

"Which was...what?"

"That all these people she knew were dying, like Carl Duncan. She thought she was some kind of jinx, but Steve figured there was more to it than that. Turns out he was right."

Holloway nodded. "Is that all he said?"

Mike looked down at his lap briefly. Looking up, he muttered, "He said she was innocent, and that he felt she was being framed. It needed to be our case because he needed to get to the truth."

" _He_ needed to get to the truth." Holloway made some notes. "As if he were the only one capable. Is this par for the course with him? I mean, does he take this kind of special interest in other cases?"

"He takes special interest in all his cases," Mike said, avoiding the pitfall Holloway tried pushing him into. "He wants justice for every victim that comes across our desks; it's what makes him a damn good cop."

"Yeah...but there's special interest...and then there's _special interest_. Has Inspector Keller ever taken that _extra_ special interest in a victim by, oh…" Holloway started thumbing through his notes. "...taking them out to dinner at an expensive restaurant? Or bringing them dinner at their apartment? Or perhaps letting them hide out at his apartment for a few nights…"

"What is your point, Holloway?" Just like Amy, Mike knew he was trying to get the word dating, or anything synonymous, to come out.

"My point is, Inspector Keller didn't leave work at work. The only places he should have been seen with Miss Johnson were at her place of residence - during business hours - or here. Not at his apartment, not out on the town…"

"How do you even know any of that happened? Since when is a man's private life subject to your scrutiny?"

"Witnesses," was all Holloway said.

Mike gave him a curious look. "Witnesses? Well...in this case, these so-called witnesses would have had to be people who had some personal grudge against Steve, because who else would have cared enough to follow him around town? That leaves two people, one of whom is a dead murderer and the other a suspect in a kidnapping. Those are the kinds of witnesses you're going to make a case with?"

The two men entered into a brief stare down. This time, Mike had backed Holloway into a wall. Holloway soon looked down at his notes and cleared his throat.

"I am under the impression that it was you who ordered Inspector Keller off the case after Miss Johnson was kidnapped from his apartment. Is that correct?" Holloway asked, switching scenarios.

"He wasn't on the case officially anyway," Mike volleyed back. "He hadn't been since he asked to be taken off."

Holloway looked at Mike sideways. " _He_ asked?"

Mike nodded. "This may come as a shock to you, but he is aware of the rules and knew he was getting too close to this, so he asked to be taken off the case."

"Hmm…" Holloway muttered. "So then why was he out with you conducting interviews, gathering evidence, looking for the suspect...or was this all _before_ he 'excused' himself?"

"The entire department was involved in this case. Everyone was out looking for Mr. Carpenter."

"So Inspector Keller wasn't okay with being on this case at one point, but then what, changed his mind about how well he could handle dealing with the man who kidnapped his girlfriend?"

"Is there an actual question in there, Holloway?" Mike grumbled.

"Why was Inspector Keller out looking for Paul Carpenter on Wednesday, April 24th instead of at the station?"

"Because like I just told you, everyone was out looking for him! People who were never on the case were out looking!"

"But none of those other men were carrying on a relationship with the victim, were they?" Holloway smirked at Mike, who kept his stoic demeanor.

"How did Inspector Keller end up at Mr. Carpenter's...hiding spot...later that afternoon? Did someone tell him to go there?"

"Now you're just getting lazy. Every single thing that happened that day is in the report, even the fact that Steve went against orders when he went to the Thomas Avenue house. But it's also pretty clear that he did not go in alone intentionally - the car radio was broken. He felt the danger to the victim was imminent, so he went in alone. He suffered enough for it."

"Imminent, huh? Is that just a well-designed excuse for Inspector Keller not waiting for backup?"

"In all those reports you supposedly read, you should have seen the emergency room doctor's report on Amy's condition. If she had waited much longer for help, she would have died. That's kind of the definition of imminent."

Holloway scrunched up his face. "But Inspector Keller got there a good what, hour before the rescue? Mr. Carpenter knocked him unconscious for quite some time, so just how much 'imminent danger' was Miss Johnson really in? It sounds like she would have been fine if Steve had waited for backup."

"I sincerely hope you're no one's last hope for rescue. You'll leave them in danger until they're almost dead," Mike scolded.

Holloway narrowed his eyes. "All I'm wondering is if Steve would have sought other means of communication or chosen to wait for assistance if the victim had been anyone else, that's all."

"And you won't find a soul who would say he would... _that's_ all," Mike growled. He'd had enough of this interview.

"Just one last thing. Did Inspector Keller ever say anything about wanting to cause Mr. Carpenter harm?"

"If you're insinuating that Steve shot Paul out of spite, the evidence says otherwise. You really need to read those reports more closely," Mike said, doing his best not to admit that Steve had said he wanted to kill Paul. Even though Steve hadn't meant it literally, Holloway would pretend not to know the difference.

As the two men started another stare down, Norm popped his head into Mike's office. "Am I interrupting something?" he asked, knowing full well that anyone having a conversation with Sergeant Holloway would be thrilled to have someone interrupt.

"No, not at all!" Mike said happily. "The sergeant was just leaving."

Holloway stood up. "Until next time, Lieutenant." He nodded at Mike then turned to Norm. "Sergeant." He walked out the door.

Norm made a face before announcing why he was there. "Just got some news."

"Good or bad?" Mike asked.

"Not sure, actually. It could turn out bad...but then it could turn out to be no news at all."

"Just spit it out, Haseejian."

"We've had a few witness statements claiming they saw 'something' fly off the Bay Bridge Monday night."

"Something?" Mike questioned.

"Some weren't completely sure it was a person."

"How can someone not be sure...oh, never mind. How many witness accounts of this so-called jumper?"

"Seven."

Mike sighed. "Monday night you said?"

Norm nodded. "The ones who thought it was a person swore it was a woman who jumped. Unfortunately...or fortunately, depending on how you look at it...Drake has open cases on two other women, from Monday or Tuesday, and both women are pretty much Amy Johnson's twin. White, long brown hair, twenties…"

"Anyone going fishing?"

"Drake's working on that right now. No one is too eager to go diving into the Bay, especially after all this time. Who knows how far a body could have gone between Monday night and now?"

Mike nodded. "Keep me informed."

"Will do," Norm said, leaving the office.

Mike wasn't sure what to think. If the ambulance had made it to Bakersfield without its original driver, then Amy had to have been with it; Margaret wouldn't have gone down there without her. Unless they never left San Francisco, but then who was in the ambulance? Mike was starting to appreciate the simple complexities of homicide cases; the complex complexities of these missing persons cases were too much to handle.

* * *

Inspector Stilwell sat at his desk and watched Norm leave Mike's office. He'd been stuck typing reports for practically every inspector in the department, and part of him wanted to go to the lieutenant and complain. Even though he wasn't thrilled with Homicide's involvement in Amy's case, doing something with that was far better than being a secretary.

As he went to stand up, the phone on his desk rang.

"Homicide, Inspector Stilwell," he answered.

"Meet me in the first floor lobby in five minutes," a man's voice said on the other end before hanging up.

"Who is this?" Stilwell asked snidely, but his question was met with a dial tone. He gave the receiver an annoyed look before placing it back on the cradle. "Crank callers," he muttered before resuming his typing.

A couple minutes later, he stopped typing and looked up. Curiosity was getting the better of him. What if it wasn't a crank call? He decided to find out. Standing up, he looked around and, seeing that no one was paying any attention to him, walked out the door and to the elevators.

Once in the main lobby, he turned in a circle but saw no one who looked like they were waiting for someone. He wandered around a little, making it look like he was the one waiting. Just as he was about to give up and head for the elevators, he heard a "psst" off to his left. He turned and saw Sergeant Holloway standing by a large plant in the corner.

Stilwell pointed at himself like he wasn't sure the sergeant was summoning him. Holloway nodded, so Stilwell walked over.

"Thanks for coming, Kid. I'd heard good things about you; glad I wasn't being misled," Holloway greeted him.

"And you are…?"

Holloway put out his right hand. "Sergeant Holloway, Internal Affairs."

Stilwell shook the man's hand. "I saw you coming out of Lieutenant Stone's office earlier. Are you in charge of investigating Inspector Keller?" he asked a little too enthusiastically.

Holloway nodded. "I've heard you're a very by-the-book kind of cop. I like that."

"A cop with a total disregard for the rules doesn't instill much fear in the public. What good is it when the police are as bad as the criminals they're supposed to catch? That leads to civil unrest," he told the sergeant very seriously.

"That's good to hear. Honestly, I fear the department going that way. There are just so many young hot shots in the ranks these days who act like they grew up in hippie communes. No respect, no responsibility. Present company excepted of course," Holloway praised Stilwell, hoping that his admiration would result in the younger man's assistance.

"Thank you, Sir." Stilwell grinned from ear to ear.

"I called you down here because I thought, since you and I think so much alike, you might be able to help me with something."

"Me? I don't see what I can do, being in Homicide and all…"

Holloway chuckled. "Ah, but don't you know how perfect that is? That's exactly where I need someone!"

Stilwell looked at him, confused.

"I need someone on the inside who can tell me exactly what's going on with Inspector Keller. All the guys up there are dodging my questions, but you can get them to spill things."

"I can? Why would they tell me anything?"

"Because you're going to gain their trust," Holloway explained. "No matter what you think of the case, you're gonna convince them that you're with them and Keller. When they see you're on their side, they'll talk."

Stilwell wasn't sure he could pull that off. "How am I supposed to do this?"

"You're smarter than them; you'll figure it out. In the meantime, I need you to get something for me."

"What?" Stilwell asked, a slight bit of apprehension in his voice.

"I need to see that letter Amy Johnson sent Keller."

"The suicide note?"

Holloway nodded. "That letter is key to finally getting someone to admit that Keller is dating a suspect."

"But she's not..."

Holloway cut him off. "Do you know where it is?"

Stilwell stared at Holloway for a brief moment. "I think Lieutenant Stone has it...well, a copy anyway. The lab has the original. But I can't get it from him!"

Holloway put his hands on the inspector's shoulders. "Do you think you deserve your job?"

"Of course," he answered confidently. "I worked hard to get here."

"Then prove it. No one said responsibility was easy. Just remember that you're working for the greater good." Holloway patted Stilwell's shoulders. "I'll be in touch," he said quickly before hurrying away.

Stilwell was left to figure out how to penetrate an impenetrable castle.


	4. Chapter 4

_**Thursday, May 2, 1974** _

Sergeant Drake knocked on Mike's office door. Mike looked up from his paperwork and waved the man into the room.

"I swear this case gets weirder by the day," Drake grumbled as he walked in and sat down.

"What now?" Mike asked, taking off his glasses and setting them on the desk.

"Heard back from Bakersfield earlier. They found a man who lives not far from where they found the ambulance. He says that for a day prior, there'd been a twin engine plane sitting in an empty patch of desert near his house. He doesn't recall hearing it come in or see how it got there. He'd been out a portion of the day, so he thinks that's when it came in. He also assumed it was scrap cuz I guess it didn't look too good. But he heard it take off around 4:30 Monday afternoon."

"He see anyone around it?" Mike inquired.

Drake shook his head. "Not a soul."

"So what's the weird part?" Mike asked.

"I called the FAA, and they have no indication of any plane taking off from anywhere near there. I get that someone can take off without notifying a tower, but no one even saw a plane on radar. I can't figure that one out."

"So there's no indication of which way it went?" Mike asked, frustration in his voice.

"Not a clue, but we're still working on it. It couldn't have just vaporized; someone had to have seen something. I'm not letting this woman get away with this!" Drake barked as he clenched his fists.

Mike chuckled. "You haven't even met her, and she's got you this riled up."

"Character flaw. I just can't stand people who try to outsmart the law."

"You and me both," Mike said in agreement.

* * *

Norm stuck his head in Mike's office. "We have the footage ready," he informed the lieutenant.

Mike stood up and walked out into the bullpen where a slide and a film projector had been set up. The hospital security footage had been edited together, analyzed, and individual frames put into slides. Inspector Galvan from Missing Persons was standing by the wall, ready to point out what they'd found in the footage. In addition to working in Missing Persons, the inspector was also an expert at body language. Outside of the department shrinks, he was known as the go-to guy for behavior analysis. As Mike sat down, Galvan began explaining the footage.

"Since Inspector Keller gave us the idea of Margaret Johnson sneaking in as a nurse, I stuck to looking for any blonde nurse who seemed out of place."

"How exactly does someone show they're out of place?" Stilwell asked, his ever-present cynical tone coming out in spades.

"Maybe if you shut up and listen, he'll tell you, you…" Norm started, but a look from Mike shut him up as well.

Inspector Galvan continued on as if nothing had happened. He aimed the remote at the projector and went to the first slide. It was a black and white picture taken from the main lobby elevators on Thursday, April 25th, late in the evening.

"Here is the woman I am almost certain is Margaret Johnson," he started, pointing to a light-haired woman in a nurse's uniform. "Notice how she's looking down, trying to avoid eye contact with anyone or with any cameras."

He then pointed at Bill Tanner, who started the film projector. It showed the same footage in real time.

"See how she never looks at anyone? Most people, when waiting in public, will pass time by looking around or even looking straight ahead or down at their clothing, but Margaret keeps her eyes on the floor. She also never looks up in case she were to make accidental eye contact with a camera - we never see her face any time she's in the camera's view. It seems to me that she was aware there could be cameras around, but she didn't know where they were, so her best choice was to stick to looking at the floor. Also notice she only looks up to see if the elevator is coming. It's a quick motion - quick enough for the camera not to get a good still shot of her face."

The men in the room watched as Margaret stood and waited for the elevator. Other nurses and a few visitors came into the scene and Margaret stayed looking at the floor. One nurse tried to engage her in conversation, and Margaret didn't even look up to say whatever it was she said to the woman.

"That's how you can tell, Stilwell," Norm grumbled. "None of the other nurses around are looking at the floor."

"Good observation, Norm," Galvan said. "Also notice their uniforms." He pointed at Margaret and then at a nurse who was standing beside her.

This time, Stilwell piped up. "Margaret's does look a slight bit different."

"It's subtle, but if you look closely, there are differences." Galvan started pointing out things on Margaret's costume that were different from the uniform of the nurse standing next to her. "Anyone taking a quick glance wouldn't have noticed. I'm guessing General gets all their uniforms from one place, and Margaret's came from a costume shop or something. A costume shop isn't necessarily going for complete authenticity. Speaking of…"

Galvan turned to the next slide on the projector, which was a zoomed in shot of Margaret's uniform. "Look at her ID badge." He then pulled a badge out of his pocket and handed it to Mike.

"I just gave Lieutenant Stone an actual badge from San Francisco General. Compare the two."

Mike took the badge and looked it over. He then stood up and walked to the wall where the still image was being projected and looked at the fake badge closely. "I'll be damned," he muttered and handed the badge to Tanner. "The coloring looks similar, but this one looks smaller. The lettering also looks wrong."

"Pretty cheap knock-off. Someone didn't do their homework," Galvan said. "If you watch her at the elevator, it almost seems like she's aware of how fake her badge is because she keeps trying to hide it under the costume's lapel."

Mike turned to the crowd. "So we need to track down whoever made this phony badge and figure out where she rented the costume from. Get someone to ID her!" He turned to Galvan. "Anything else?"

Galvan nodded and switched to the next slide. "Here's a still from inside the elevator. I had the lab guys zoom in on the call buttons. Notice which floor she chose?"

Stilwell narrowed his eyes and said, "Looks like the third."

"You can see that?" Norm asked.

"Young eyes," Mike reasoned. "Amy was on the third floor. This isn't just a coincidence."

Inspector Galvan continued with more slides and security footage that caught Margaret near the stairwell and elevators on the next two nights. Each time she was wearing the same incorrect uniform and ID badge.

"I think we still need to put her on the third floor," Mike said to the team assembled in the bullpen. "Start interviewing anyone who might have been on that floor on those nights - nurses, doctors, patients, janitors...anyone!" The room of men collectively nodded.

The men then divvied up the new tasks. Stilwell and his Missing Persons partner agreed to check out the costume shops, Haseejian and his partner chose to head to the hospital, and Lessing and his partner took to finding a fake ID maker.

As the teams headed out the door, Mike pulled Norm aside. "You see anything funny yet?"

"With the WARB?" Norm shook his head. "Other than being a pain in the ass, he's been clean from what I've seen."

Mike nodded. "Good. Let's hope he stays that way. Now go find us a witness."


	5. Chapter 5

_**Friday, May 3, 1974** _

Nothing. He'd heard nothing for four days. He couldn't understand why she hadn't called him yet. Surely she'd had at least a small window of time to make a call when she wasn't being watched. She would call him...wouldn't she?

After he woke up that morning, Steve decided to finally leave the house and go see someone - someone who might have more answers as to where Amy could be. He got dressed, shaved, and took off, headed for St. Francis Medical Center.

When Karen saw him come in the room, she smiled. "You haven't disappeared on me," she said happily, reaching her good arm out to give him a hug.

He was hesitant at first, but soon reciprocated.

"You're holding up?" Karen asked him in mid-hug.

"I guess you could call it that," Steve told her, pulling away from the embrace. "How are you feeling?"

"Better...though I don't know exactly how good that is. I'm tired of all the pain and sitting around, but I'm not dead. I keep having to remind myself of that - I'm alive and Paul isn't. That puts me one step ahead."

Steve smiled and had a seat in a chair that was next to the bed.

"You're sure you're doing okay?" Karen asked, concern evident in her voice. "You've looked better, you know."

Steve sloughed it off. "Really, I'm fine."

"Sure...and my leg isn't broken in five places. Unless you know where Amy is, then you're faking this 'I'm okay' bit. You know something the rest of us don't?"

Steve shook his head.

Karen looked at him for a moment. "There is something you're not telling me though, isn't there?"

Steve avoided eye contact. He knew if he looked at Karen, he'd start crying.

"Look, it can't be any worse than hearing your nutcase aunt kidnapped your cousin and no one knows where they are. If I can take that news, I can take anything."

Steve sighed and kept looking at the floor. "After I left here Monday, I went home and found a letter in my mailbox." Steve paused, his emotions threatening to come out.

Karen started to wonder if this news wouldn't be worse than she expected. "A letter? What kind of letter?"

After a pause that seemed to span decades, Steve finally choked out, "A suicide letter."

Karen audibly gasped. "Amy sent you a suicide letter? I don't believe it." She shook her head. "No...no, she wouldn't do that. I don't care what kind of mood she was in. There's no way she'd leave you like that."

Steve looked up and smirked. "You don't know how bad I want to believe that."

"Was it even her handwriting? I bet Aunt Margaret wrote it just to get to you."

Steve shook his head. "It was Amy."

Karen gave him a questioning look. "Do you even know what her handwriting looks like? I mean, did she write you anything in the week you knew each other?"

Steve knew she had a point, but he also knew he was right. "She mentioned things that no one else would have known," was all he said.

Karen looked down at the blanket covering her legs. "She wouldn't. There has to be some other explanation," she said quietly.

"I had told her, before Mike and I went to give up Jasmine, to write her feelings down so she would get them out of her head. That's probably what that letter was."

"Then how did you get it at home? The post office isn't that fast."

Steve shrugged. "Mike took it and then dusted the mailbox for prints."

Karen shook her head as a few tears ran down her cheeks. "She's still alive. I know she is. She may not seem like a fighter, but she is, and she's not going to let Aunt Margaret get away with this. She just won't."

The two sat in silence for a long while, neither sure what to say.

"I'm going back to L.A. tomorrow," Karen finally uttered.

"You're what?" Steve asked. He'd been so lost in his own head that he wasn't sure he'd heard her correctly. "You're leaving San Francisco? Why?"

"My dad is having me moved to a rehab facility down there since it's closer to them."

"Rehab?"

"Since someone is sure I'm not going to die now, the hospital is kicking me out. However, I'm not able to take care of myself, so into a rehab facility I go. I'm nineteen and basically an infant again." She rolled her eyes and sighed. "But I'm not dead."

"Well...that makes sense I guess. I suppose you'll have to work into walking again."

"Like an infant." Karen lay back and looked up at the ceiling. "Normally I'd be okay with going home for a while, but how can I leave without knowing where Amy is? Makes me feel like I don't care or something."

"No one will think that. You should be around your family," Steve told her. "Besides, that could be where she is."

"You think?" Karen looked at him, hopeful.

He shrugged and shook his head. "I really don't know. I mean…"

Karen nodded. "I know. My aunt is...insane. There really isn't any telling what she's capable of. Even my mom is worried sick. She plays it off like she's just worried about Amy's safety...but there's something more there. It's like she's hiding something."

"About Margaret?" Steve sat up, intrigued.

"I guess. You know, after you left Monday, I laid here and tried to think of anything that would help you guys. I talked to my mom, thinking maybe she'd have something. She just kept shaking her head and acting like she couldn't believe her sister was capable of something like that. Yet, she just didn't seem _that_ shocked."

"Really? Like, you think she's done something like this before?"

Karen shrugged. "Maybe? I wouldn't know. That day, I realized how little I actually know about my family. I mean, I know way too much about my dad's side; I know every aunt, uncle, cousin...I even know about the crazy uncle! You know the type - the one who always ends up with a lampshade on his head at family gatherings?"

Steve laughed. It felt good to laugh after the week he'd had.

"But Mom's side? I know nothing. And when I say nothing, I mean nothing! I don't know anyone's names...I don't know where anyone lives...if it weren't for Aunt Margaret, I'd think my mother was an orphan! My brother and I have always just assumed our grandparents were dead, but we don't know for sure. Mom never mentions them! I don't know what their names were, or if they even lived in California."

"That sounds very...suspicious. But maybe that's the detective in me talking. Not everyone likes their family enough to mention them. Maybe she just disowned them, or they disowned her."

"They probably disowned Aunt Margaret." Karen shrugged again. "It just makes me wonder…" She trailed off.

"Makes you wonder what?" Steve was getting more interested.

"If the answer is in there. If I knew more about my mom and aunt's pasts, would we find Amy?"

Steve smirked. "You're sure you don't want to be an investigator when you grow up?"

Karen chuckled. "I think I'll leave that up to you, Wonder Boy."

"Seriously though, you might be on to something there." Steve stared off at the wall, lost in thought.

Karen watched him, curious as to what he was thinking. He noticed her looking at him and came back to reality.

"Sorry. I was just thinking about how I could dig into your aunt's past. I know the guys are already looking, but I don't think they're finding much. All they know so far is that your aunt was in an institution once."

Karen's jaw dropped. "She what? An institution? You mean, like a nuthouse?"

"I have a feeling they frown on that terminology, but basically, yeah. In Nebraska, Mike said. Didn't know why or when though."

"Nebraska? What would she have been doing in Nebraska?"

"Maybe they lived there before coming out here? I think half the population of California is people who aren't from California."

"Well, Aunt Margaret did want to be an actress, so maybe she did move here from Nebraska. But wow...so she _is_ certifiably crazy then!"

Steve chuckled again. "Now you don't know that for sure. I mean, she could have been in there for another reason."

Karen just looked at him, disbelieving.

"I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt."

"Why? She tried to kill your girlfriend."

"I...don't know. But I do know that now I'm gonna try and figure out your family. I think you're right - the answer is in there. If Margaret thinks that no one knows about her past, she'll try to hide there. Perfect cover, right?" Steve's voice was much more upbeat and enthusiastic than it was when he walked in the room.

"How can I help?" Karen asked. "Even though I'm immobile and stuck in bed..."

Steve thought for a second. "How long will you be in the rehab facility?"

"I don't really know. A month maybe? Why?"

"Oh, I was just thinking about human nature. Lots of people may try to hide their past, but something also makes them hold on to it. Do you think that maybe your mom has anything hidden away at home, or…"

Karen opened her eyes wider. "I don't really know. I have never seen a single photograph from before Mom met Dad. I often wondered if there was a fire in the past, and they all burned up. But then maybe they _are_ hidden somewhere. I'd ask, but I know I'd get nothing out of my mom - never have. However...I could get my brother on it. He'd be home when no one else was. I bet he'd be willing to sneak around for me."

Steve laughed. "Your brother would do that?"

"Worth a try. I'll just have to figure out how to get him alone to ask. Plus, he's got this dorky friend who thinks he's Sherlock Holmes, so between the two of them, they'll figure something out."

"Maybe I'll stick to working on contacts she's made in LA. Amy told me she once went on tour with a play?"

"Oh yeah, she did. I think I was six or seven at the time. I don't remember much, other than Amy being at our house a lot more since Uncle Glen was working a lot. I'm thinking she was gone for at least six months."

"So she could have met people from all over the country."

Karen nodded. "Probably so. I don't know where they went, but I remember it was outside of California."

"You remember the name of the play or anything?"

Karen shook her head. "No...but I do know the name of her agent! Barry Vincent. He'd probably know plenty about her."

Steve smiled and stood up. "Thanks. Looks like I have some work to do." He walked over and gave Karen another hug. "Thanks for giving me something else to think about other than my own misery."

After pulling away from the hug, Karen told Steve, "Thanks for not giving up on us. Amy needed someone like you in her life. I guess, thanks for falling in love with her." Karen giggled. "You know what I mean."

"Yeah. We'll get her back. We will," Steve said with more confidence than he'd had all week.


	6. Chapter 6

_**Saturday, May 4, 1974** _

Stilwell came into Homicide early in the afternoon and found the place deserted. To be safe, he popped his head into every door and corner he could, just to make double sure he was alone. He'd lay awake half the past two nights trying to figure out how he was going to sneak into Lieutenant Stone's office and look for the letter. He assumed his best bet was to go in when no one would be there. Not knowing if there was actually a time during daylight hours when that was the case, he took a chance on Saturday afternoon. Even if there was someone there, he could just pretend to be working on his costume shop mystery.

He stood in the middle of the bullpen and took a deep breath. He may have been alone, but he was still scared to try and pull this off. Poking around someone else's desk was bad enough, but the highest-ranking officer in the room? That was a suicide mission. However, it was a mission that he honestly believed in. He hated the thought of working side by side with a man who had no regard for the rules of the position. It was his duty as an honest cop to help weed out the troublemakers.

He took another deep breath and dug into his jeans' pockets. He'd brought a pair of disposable gloves so that his prints wouldn't end up in Mike's office or on the letter. After slipping them on, he took another look around and headed into Mike's office. The door was closed but unlocked, so Stilwell snuck in quickly and shut the door behind him. If anyone came in, he could at least hide if the door was closed.

Looking around the office, he wondered where the letter might be. He hadn't seen what Mike did with the papers after their Tuesday morning meeting, so he decided to try the desk as the first logical place. Digging through drawers and the piles on top of the desk yielded nothing, so he tried the filing cabinet in the corner. After a few seconds of looking through files in the top drawer, a smile developed on his face. One file, hiding in the middle of several other lookalike files, was one simply labeled "Amy." Stilwell took the file out of the drawer and opened it, finding the copy of the letter inside. Even though he had declined to read it at the meeting, he glanced at it long enough to know what he was looking at now was the same letter. He quickly slipped it out of the folder and put the folder back in the exact same spot he'd found it. He then quickly and quietly slipped out of Mike's office and over to his desk.

He laid the letter on his desk and picked up the phone. After a moment, he reached his desired party.

" _You_ meet me in the lobby in five minutes," he spat out before slamming the phone down. He didn't intend to sound so put out, but his heart was racing, and he was full of adrenaline. He wanted to get this letter out of his possession as quickly as he could; he felt like he was in possession of volatile radioactive material.

He sat down and took a couple more deep breaths. Since he had a few minutes to get downstairs, he decided to actually read the letter and see if it would be of any use to Holloway. The man seemed pretty desperate to get a hold of it, so it must be pretty damning, he thought.

_Steve,_

_I don't see what good all this is...I really don't. It's all just a matter of time before everyone is gone, isn't it? Jasmine's gone...you'll be next. I know you think you love me, and maybe you really do...I guess if I can love you like I do, you can love me the same way. I just wonder how much more of my insanity you can handle. You're so with it, and then there's me. You're the calm, and I'm the storm. I feel like I completely ruined your life just by being in it, and that kills me, probably because I do love you as much as I do. I don't deserve you, I just don't. You deserve to be with someone who doesn't come with a crazy family, or emotional instability, or a whole lot of self-hate. It would kill me to see you with someone else...but you deserve to lead a normal life. If I'm not around to see it all, then it won't hurt, will it? If the rest of my life is going to be making you miserable, watching someone else make my daughter miserable, and dealing with my mother...I can't do it anymore._

_For what it's worth...you really are the greatest guy I've ever met. I'm not the least bit sorry I got shot - because I met you. Please don't feel guilty about it. I know you still think you got me shot, but stop thinking that, okay? It wasn't your fault. Nothing that's happened is your fault. I'm glad you were there for me. I could have gotten shot and had no one like you to help me through it. Without you, I wouldn't have gotten through it at all...none of it. Not that, not Paul...nothing. I do owe you a lifetime of thanks. This last week of my life, even with all the crap that happened, was the best I've ever had. I've honestly never been happier. No one's ever made me feel good about myself like you have. You loved me in spite of myself. Though I didn't get it at the time, I did think about what you said about good scars. You were right; I'll wear these scars like tattoos - constant reminders of a sudden but eternal love I was lucky enough to experience. Everyone has a first, but I bet no one had a first as great as you._

_But I can't stop thinking about all the pain I've put you through, and it hurts worse than all my injuries combined. I can't live with that. I can't live with knowing that I was to blame for all those poor people dying, or that my own mother was a part of it. I can't stand how much she hates you or me for loving you. That will never go away. I can't watch Jasmine live with strangers who don't love her knowing that it's my fault she's there in the first place. I can't live...I can't live being a burden to you. Your life has been nothing but bad luck ever since you met me, and I love you too much to keep doing that to you. I have to go. I'm sorry, but I don't see any other way. I know you'll try to stop me, out of professional obligation if nothing else, but I'm past being convinced. I just don't see any good coming out of me being around you._

_I really am sorry it all worked out this way. We could have had it all, you know? I guess fate had other plans. Be good, and look out for Jasmine. She'll need someone familiar and stable in her life. Thank Mike for everything he did. And you...live the life you deserve, okay? Don't dwell on all this...don't mourn me._

_Love you always,_

_Amy_

Stilwell stared at the letter. Despite his initial attitude about the whole ordeal, he suddenly felt sorry for Steve. Any guy would be lucky to have a woman like this in his life, no matter where or how he met her. He'd had his own share of girlfriends over the years, but none of them felt about him the way Amy felt about Steve. He didn't even know the two, but he could just tell that they had made a very strong connection in just a week's time. Then he thought about the saying "the heart wants what the heart wants." He'd felt that himself at one time, when he'd fallen for a woman he knew he really shouldn't fall for. Even though he knew it was wrong, he couldn't deny or hide away his feelings. He wondered if Steve had felt that same way.

However, the little devil on his shoulder was reminding him that law and order was more important than personal feelings, especially in this case. Steve and Amy's relationship would have been fine any other time, but not now. An entire case could have been jeopardized for the sake of love, and that wasn't acceptable.

He folded the letter and stuck it inside his jacket before standing up, shoving his hands in his pockets, releasing a nervous breath, and heading for the elevators.

Before he made it out the door, he ran into Bill Tanner.

"I thought this was your day off?" Bill asked him.

He nodded. "It is, but Jennings and I didn't make much headway with the costume shops, so I decided to come in and look over the list again. There's probably something one of us missed," he said completely sincerely.

Bill nodded his approval. "You've had a change of heart about Steve, huh?"

Stilwell thought for a second. The letter had definitely made him look at things a little differently. "Yeah. I shouldn't judge a book by the rumors I hear, should I? Besides, I like Homicide and would like to stay."

"Being a team player will definitely help. Mike will appreciate the extra effort as well. Not just on this case, but others as well."

"Life is good when the boss is happy, right?" Stilwell chuckled.

Bill chuckled as well. "That's very true! So have you found anything?"

Stilwell shook his head. "Either no one answers the phone, or the person I need to talk to isn't there. People seem deaf, dumb, and blind." It was the first completely honest thing he'd said so far.

Bill snorted. "Welcome to Homicide, Kid." He patted Stilwell on the shoulder and walked on into the squad room while Stilwell walked out. Holloway was right - becoming friends with these guys would only help, no matter what he decided to do with this situation.

On the way down, and while he stood in the lobby and waited, Stilwell kept going back and forth about what he was doing. The angel on his other shoulder appeared and begged him to reconsider; it wasn't his place to be so callous and backstabbing, especially when he didn't even know Steve. The devil interrupted and reminded him that he was a cop first and foremost. Sentimentality would not get him to the top of the ranks. Before he could even begin to make a decision, Holloway stepped off the elevator and sauntered over to him.

"Awfully demanding, aren't we?" he said snidely. "I don't like being commanded, but that attitude will get you far in this business."

Stilwell, still wearing the gloves, pulled the letter out of his jacket. He began handing it to Holloway but pulled it away at the last second.

"You can't tell me that you can't make a case without this one piece of evidence," he said doubtingly.

Holloway glared at him. "Of course I can," he said arrogantly, "but how much easier is it to get a confession out of someone with a schlocky, sentimental piece of evidence like this? I assume it's all lovey-dovey...the kind of stuff that will back Keller into a corner."

"I can tell you're not married," Stilwell muttered.

"Like I have time for that. Or this. Just give me the letter, Kid."

Stilwell didn't move. "I don't like this. It's private stuff, and we should feel bad for reading it."

"Yeah, well, Stone made it public, did he not? Guess he doesn't care too much about his partner's feelings, so why should we? You need to stitch up that bleeding heart of yours." Holloway grabbed the letter out of Stilwell's hand, opened it, and began reading.

He started to chuckle. "Oh. Oh...this is gold. She did everything but write 'Keller and I are dating.' This is even better than I thought." He closed the letter and put it inside his jacket. He then placed a hand on Stilwell's shoulder.

"You did good, Kid. I understand that you may have been a little nervous at first, but you'll get over that, just like you'll get over feeling sorry for guys like Keller. They know what they're doing, and they know it's wrong. They just don't care, because they think they're above the law. But with guys like you and me around, soon the department will run like the finely-tuned machine it should be. Good work." He patted Stilwell's shoulder again before turning around and walking out the front door of the station.

Stilwell stood and watched him leave, not sure what to do next. Then he angrily tore off the gloves and threw them into a nearby trash can. He felt slightly dirty, but maybe that was just a necessary evil he'd learn to live with. He still felt that in the long run, he was doing the right thing. Inspector Keller may be the kind of guy who routinely spills confidential secrets to civilians, putting not only the case in jeopardy, but any officers involved as well. He'd feel terrible if he let this go now and then somewhere down the road Steve did something he could have prevented. Rubbing his face, he headed back to the elevators.

"I did the right thing," he said out loud as the elevator doors closed. "I know I did."

He carried that confidence back to Homicide, but it was soon deflated. As he walked in, he saw Mike standing in his office looking through the same filing cabinet drawer he'd stolen Amy's letter from just minutes before. His heart started beating quickly and he felt a rush of acid churn in his stomach.

Upon hearing the door shut, Mike turned around and saw Stilwell standing there, seemingly staring at him.

"Mark. I didn't expect to see you here on your day off. What brings you in?" Mike asked as he took out a file folder and closed the drawer.

Mark Stilwell momentarily closed his eyes and said a small prayer that the folder was not Amy's. "Uh, Jennings and I didn't get much accomplished with the costume shops, and it was kind of bugging me, so I thought I'd come in and make some more calls," he told his superior with no indication in his voice of just how nervous he really was. "I hope that's okay."

Mike, with the folder in hand, walked out of his office and over to the young man. "Of course that's okay. We may get days off, but to be honest, in the middle of a case it's hard to slow down."

"Exactly," Mark nodded while trying to catch a glimpse of the folder. Mike held it in such a way that he couldn't see what the tab said.

"I'll be in the building for a while yet, so if you need anything, let me know. Right now I'm headed down to the lab to check on the fingerprint results."

"The ones from the letter?" Mark asked, his voice cracking like that of a pubescent boy. He quickly cleared his throat.

"And from Steve's mailbox. Something's gotta crack in this case soon, right?"

"It will," Mark assured him, praying that he left quickly.

Mike smiled and headed out the door, thinking that he was perhaps wrong about this young man. He wouldn't be the first guy who'd ever gotten off to a rough start and on the wrong foot but eventually became a fine investigator. Even Steve's first few days were rocky.

Once Mike was gone, Mark sunk heavily into his desk chair, hoping that the folder Mike had taken with him wasn't the letter folder. He didn't want his career to end before it even started.


	7. Chapter 7

_**Monday, May 6, 1974, Morning** _

It was a little after seven, and Steve was already on his second pot of coffee. For the past week, the only thing that had made him sleep was alcohol. After meeting with Karen and getting a new sense of purpose, he'd laid off the booze in order to think clearly, but that kept him awake all night. Every time he'd try to sleep, he'd think about Amy. He couldn't even sleep in his bed anymore because it held too many memories of her even though they'd only slept in it together for two nights. The couch was his new bed, but he couldn't seem to sleep there either. Whenever he'd start drifting off, he'd suddenly picture Amy alone somewhere, helpless and scared, calling his name. Each time he'd try to get to her, but he almost never could. When he did, she was already dead. He started thinking if he stayed awake, she'd stay alive. So instead of liquor, he drowned himself in caffeine.

As the weekend progressed, his sense of purpose waned. Margaret's agent hadn't seen nor heard from her in months. The list of friends and business associates he gave Steve yielded much of the same. Each person gave Steve a new name or two to add to his contact list, but every person told the same story. By the time Sunday was over, he'd gotten no farther than he was on Friday. No one seemed to know anything about Margaret or her life outside of acting. Several people didn't even know she was married, and fewer knew she had a daughter. He may not have learned anything about Amy's whereabouts, but his picture of who Margaret was as a person became clearer.

To top it all off, today was the day the shooting board would meet to determine whether or not his shooting Paul was justified. Even though that was separate from the Internal Affairs investigation, he still had a feeling that would come up, and he was not in the right state of mind to take any questions concerning Amy. He still hadn't perfected the stoic demeanor he'd been practicing all week for when people asked how he was holding up, and if he broke down even slightly in front of his superiors, he'd be put on leave for emotional instability. That would do nothing but lead to his being reprimanded for seeing her in the first place. All he wanted to do was get back to work where he could keep a closer eye on the search for his girlfriend, and he didn't want anything standing in his way, especially himself.

As he was walking to his kitchen to fill up his coffee cup again, Mike knocked on his door.

"Come on in, Mike!" he shouted, deciding to forget his refill.

Mike opened the front door and walked into a better scene than he had previously. There were no glasses or liquor bottles sitting around, and no loud music was blaring. Steve was up, dressed, and clean-shaven.

"You look human again," Mike commented.

"Was that a compliment?" Steve teased.

"It's just that you've looked a bit rough around the edges lately. How are you feeling?"

Steve put down his coffee cup and shrugged. "Fine."

Mike looked at him curiously. "Fine? Really?"

Steve nodded. "Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?"

Mike started looking around. "Did she come home and you didn't tell anyone?"

"Trust me, Mike, if she were here, everyone would know."

"That's what I figured. So what's got you up and amongst the living now, besides having to go in today?"

"You act like you expected to see me half-dead or something," Steve told his partner. "She's out there, and I'm going to find her. I've been working on some things, and I'm feeling good about it." He sounded more confident than he actually was.

Mike wasn't sure what to say. "Anything you care to share?"

Steve shook his head. He didn't feel like admitting that he really didn't have any good news yet. "Once I get things more concrete maybe. You guys have anything new?"

Mike hung his head. "No. If we could just find that smarmy lawyer. He's running for a reason, you know."

Steve nodded. "We'll find him too; it's just a matter of time."

The two stood in silence for a moment while Steve busied himself with tying his tie. Mike then began speaking.

"I see you cleaned up the place. You're sober?"

Steve was shocked at the bluntness of Mike's question. "Yeah, I'm sober. For your information, I haven't had a drink since Thursday."

Mike grinned. "Good. I need my partner at a hundred percent."

Steve finished tying his tie and grabbed his sport coat off the couch. "You think we'll still be partners?"

"Why wouldn't we be?"

"If they don't reinstate me, or they give me a suspension…"

"Oh please," Mike scoffed. "Everyone knows it was a clean shooting."

"Yeah...so you're not worried about anything?" Steve was seeing where Mike's thoughts were regarding his emotional stability.

"Are you?" Mike shot back.

"What would I be worried about? I know I shot that creep for a good reason."

Mike slowly nodded. "That's all there is to it then? I shot him, I'm fine?"

"Shooting him made me feel a lot better about life, so yeah, I'm fine," Steve answered in all sincerity.

"Mmm hmm," was all Mike said. He knew Steve was fishing, and it worried him. He knew his partner pretty well, and he could tell when the boy was putting on an act.

"So are we leaving or not?" Steve asked, walking toward the door.

* * *

Mike walked out into the hallway with Captain Olsen. The two men, along with Lenny Murchison and several other higher-ups, were in the middle of a meeting concerning whether or not Steve should return to work. All had decided that Homicide's investigation showed that the shooting was justified and within the department's protocol and had agreed to pass this decision on to the chief for his official okay.

However, there was a concern over Steve's mental health, and it had little to do with the actual shooting. Mike tried to argue that any remorse or distress Steve was feeling in regards to the case had nothing to do with the shooting and should not be discussed at that time. Rudy agreed and reminded the panel that there was an open IA investigation in regards to the matter. The deputy chief disagreed and wanted to hear from Steve himself before he would be a hundred percent okay with putting Steve back on the streets.

Mike sighed and, with Rudy, walked into the hallway to retrieve Steve.

"This isn't right, Rudy. The poor boy's going to be dragged through the mud enough by IA! Why should he have to go through it twice?" Mike growled, completely displeased with the deputy chief and not afraid to say so.

"I'm with you, Mike, but if we want Steve back at his desk, we need to play his game," Rudy said. The two looked up and saw Steve coming around the corner, a paper coffee cup in his hand.

"Is it over already?" Steve asked, taking a final drink of coffee.

"Well, no, not quite, Buddy Boy," Mike stammered.

Steve narrowed his eyes at his partner. "What happened?"

Mike paused for a while, trying to figure out just how to tell Steve he'd have to relive everything. "The deputy chief wants to hear from you personally."

"About the shooting?" Steve asked, finding that strange. Any other time he'd shot someone on duty, he'd never had to do that.

Seeing that Mike was struggling to tell his partner the real reason, Rudy stepped in. "For some reason he's worried about your mental state, and he wants to hear from you how you're taking all this. It's ridiculous, but humor him for us, will you, Steve?"

Steve snorted. "Holloway got to him I suppose."

Both men shrugged.

Steve crumpled up his empty cup and tossed it in the trash. He ran his fingers through his hair and let out a breath. "Guess it's time to go charm the socks off these guys, huh?" He put a smile on his face and followed Rudy into the room.

Mike hung back, finding himself unable to move. Something about Steve's demeanor scared him. From the way he seemed to angrily crumple the coffee cup to the fake smile he plastered on his face, Mike was worried that this act Steve was putting on would crumble at just the wrong time, and he wouldn't be there to save his partner.

* * *

Thirty minutes later, satisfied with Steve's mental health, the panel broke up and Steve was reinstated, albeit on desk duty for the remainder of the week. As everyone walked into the corridor, Mike and Steve were greeted by the presence of Sergeant Holloway.

Before Holloway could even say anything, Mike spit out, "What do you want?"

"Pleasant morning to you too, Lieutenant. I thought now would be a good time to have a conversation with your partner," he said, looking at Steve and smiling.

Mike rolled his eyes. "Well, now would not be a good time, Sergeant. Steve is going back to work now, and frankly we can use all the help we can get. So if you'll excuse us…" Mike grabbed Steve's arm and started pulling him away.

"Need that extra help finding Amy Johnson? Cuz, that would be a conflict of interest, wouldn't it? You know, you can try to put this off all you want, Stone, but we're going to get this out in the open one way or another.

"He's right, Mike. Might as well get this over with so he can move on to annoying some other poor cop," Steve said.

"He has the right to representation…" Mike started, but Steve cut him off.

"I've already talked with them. It's fine, really." Steve sounded even more confident than he had in front of the panel.

Mike just glared at Holloway as if to silently tell the man that if he did one wrong thing to Steve, Mike would have his badge.

Steve walked back into the room he was just in. Holloway smirked arrogantly at Mike and followed Steve.

Mike, remembering that the room had an observation window, quickly walked into the adjoining room to watch the interview. Lenny, who had been silently watching the scene in the hallway, followed Mike.

"What are you doing?" he asked Mike, closing the door to the observation room.

"I want to see how Steve handles this."

Lenny joined Mike by the window. "Are you worried? He seemed to handle the panel just fine."

Mike folded his arms and looked through the mirror at Holloway and his partner. Steve didn't seem a bit flustered. "That's what worries me, Lenny. It's all an act, I just know it. He's not fine. You can't go from being so despondent that you do nothing but drown your sorrows in scotch to life is beautiful in a day's time. No one grieves that fast!"

"Well," Lenny began, "everyone grieves in their own way, but I am inclined to agree with you. It's like he decided to bury it and forget it ever happened. Almost like he decided Amy was dead, and he buried her."

Mike slowly shook his head. "He told me this morning that he was working on something, and that he's going to find her. He seems to really believe it, and I hope he does find something, but I don't know…"

"Do you think she's alive?" Lenny asked.

Both men stared at the window. Mike rubbed his face with his right hand. "I don't really know. Part of me says yes. I really don't think Margaret would kill her daughter. She put too much effort into kidnapping her just to kill her."

Lenny nodded, his psychiatrist wheels spinning. "But…"

"But I also know that she hates Steve, and I can see Amy defending him - and being quite mouthy about it - until her mother snaps. Amy was afraid of her after all." Mike sighed. "I wish I could get ahold of her medical records. Maybe if I knew why she was in a psych facility, I could read her better."

"Margaret was in a facility?"

Mike nodded. "Bill's looking into it, but I doubt he finds much."

"Hmm," was all Lenny said.

Mike turned to him. "What are you thinking?"

"I might be able to pull some strings, one doctor to another. She is part of an active investigation after all, and like you said, knowing her past will assist you in solving the case. Let me work on a few things. I'll talk to Bill and see what he's found so far."

Mike reached over and patted Lenny on the shoulder. "Thanks."

The two then stood in silence as they watched Steve battle Sergeant Holloway.


	8. Chapter 8

_**Monday, May 6, 1974, Morning** _

It started off as a stare down - two seasoned investigators, both adept at reading body language, sizing up the competition. One was determined to show the whole ordeal wasn't phasing him in the slightest; the other was determined to make his opponent crack.

"I'm just doing my job, you know," the older one finally said as if he were worried about losing his best friend.

"And I was just doing mine," the other said, not interested in lame excuses for the witchhunt.

"Really? I guess you and I went to different academies then, because I learned what you did was against the rules."

Steve sat back and folded his arms over his chest. "What did I do?"

"You got involved with the subject of an active investigation. I think you know what I mean by involved."

"I've heard rumors. You seem to think I was dating Amy Johnson," Steve said as if that were the farthest thing from the truth.

"You weren't?"

Steve shook his head. "That would be a conflict of interest." Steve smirked.

"Yes it would...a conflict you didn't report."

"Why would I report something that didn't exist?"

Holloway smiled. "I really hope you're not lying to me, because then I'll just have to add that to the other rules you've broken."

"I'm not lying; there was no conflict of interest."

Holloway's smile faded. "You're going to have to explain that one to me."

"The case in question, the one involving Paul Carpenter, had nothing to do with Amy. She wasn't a suspect and, initially, not even a victim. She was no more than a woman we interviewed in regards to the investigation."

Holloway shook his head in disbelief. "How long did it take you to come up with that counter argument, thirty seconds? First of all, there are two cases involved here - the Nick Milani case, and the Paul Carpenter one. Amy Johnson was a victim in the Milani case. I mean, he shot her while you were trying to apprehend him! If he had lived, he would have gone up on charges of false imprisonment and attempted murder. You would have been in on that case."

"You want to punish me for something that never happened? You can't seriously hope to win a case on, 'Well, that would have happened, but it didn't because the guy was dead.'" Steve laughed. "That case disappeared before it was even a case! The D.A.'s office hadn't even charged him yet."

Holloway cleared his throat. "How exactly did the Paul Carpenter case have nothing to do with Miss Johnson? Okay, so she wasn't a suspect. But she was a pretty central figure in it. She was far more than a woman you interviewed. Paul Carpenter killed all those people in the name of love for her, right?"

"How is that relevant? I doubt the court would have cared too much why he did it. She wasn't a suspect or a victim; she had nothing to do with his killing spree," Steve answered matter-of-factly.

"Maybe not, but she still held some pretty valuable cards, so she was a part of the investigation whether you want to admit it or not. And you could have easily told her things about the case during one of your little trysts. Those things could have come back to Paul Carpenter...do I need to explain the seriousness of that?"

"No, because that never happened. He didn't know anything about the case, because Amy never said a word to him. She didn't want him in the same state as her, so why would she have talked to him?"

"And you know this for a fact?"

Steve nodded. "I trusted her. I read people pretty well, and she wasn't the type to double cross me. Plus, I never told her anything she couldn't have read in the paper."

"She convince you of her trustworthiness before or after you slept together?" Holloway wanted to unnerve Steve and thought this was one good way.

Steve didn't flinch, much to Holloway's chagrin. "You're making an awful lot of ridiculous assumptions, Sergeant," was all he said.

"Okay, you're right...that was an assumption, though a valid one. I mean, isn't it logical to assume that when a woman runs a mile to a man's house at midnight, she's looking for more than just shoulder to cry on?"

Steve glared at him. He could take whatever idiotic insults Holloway threw his way, but insults about Amy were off-limits. "You're a pig, you know that?"

Holloway smirked. He'd gotten under Steve's skin. "Don't like me painting your girlfriend in anything but a positive light, huh?"

"She's not my girlfriend, but talking about women like that makes you a pig, in case you weren't already aware."

"She told me the reason she went to your house that night was because you lived close by, and you already knew about the case. She didn't want to have to explain the situation to another officer," Holloway informed Steve.

"Yeah, so? That's what she told me too. I don't see the problem here."

Holloway stared at Steve. "You don't see…" He chuckled. "Alright, let's back up a little. So Paul calls her and supposedly threatens her."

"DID threaten her," Steve snapped.

"Supposedly. She had a few choices here. She could have called the police and had them come over. She could have simply locked her door."

Steve rolled his eyes at that comment.

"Hell, she could have even called you! But what did she do? She left the apartment and ran to your house. I cannot think of any other reason why she would choose that avenue other than you're her boyfriend, and she wanted you to protect her."

Steve simply looked in Holloway's eyes. "You weren't there, you weren't in her shoes. Have you ever been stalked by someone? Or had someone you were afraid of call you and tell you he or she was coming over against your wishes? Amy thought if she stayed in her apartment, Paul would get her anyway. He did kick a hole in her front door after all. I'd say that means he would have gotten to her regardless if she 'simply locked the door.'" He took on a snotty tone to reiterate what Holloway said.

"And as far as calling a squad car, there's really no telling how soon they would have gotten there. The nearest car could have been half an hour away or busy. It wouldn't have been a priority call, so they could have even taken their time getting there. Amy was so afraid of what Paul would do that she didn't want to take those chances. She walked to my apartment because she was afraid he was outside her place and would see her drive out of the garage! She was less afraid of people hanging around town in the dark than she was of Paul Carpenter! No one should be questioning why she did what she did. No one."

The two men stayed silent while Holloway pretended to read some notes. Steve continued to glare at him, hoping to unnerve the man.

"Her actions aren't really the problem I suppose, but they do tell a story that is your problem. She comes to your house and tells you everything that's happened. What did _you_ do?"

Steve swallowed hard. He quickly tried to think of a way to spin the truth so it didn't look so bad in Holloway's eyes.

"I asked her why she didn't just call me. She told me about the phone call, and how Paul said he was coming over to her apartment. She told me she was afraid he'd try and rape her like he did in high school; that's why she was desperate to get away and find a safe place to hide. Knowing what we know now, I'd say her fears were valid. He raped and attacked her pretty viciously."

"That's all you did? You didn't suggest she stay at your place or…"

"I wasn't gonna kick her out! It was a bit late to go to a hotel by then. I suggested that she get herself cleaned up a bit, and then she fell asleep on my couch. At that point, I was a bit leery of letting her go out and become a target for a serial killer, so I told her to hide out at my place. I wasn't there much anyway." He was stretching the truth pretty far, but nothing he said could really be proven true or false.

"So you're just a thoughtful cop?"

"I'm a very nice guy," Steve sassed.

"So I see." Holloway shook his head. "Everyone I've talked to paints you as the epitome of the good cop. Wouldn't spill case secrets, wouldn't knowingly break the rules…"

"So why do you think differently? You jealous that people like me, and they don't like you?" Steve smirked.

Holloway laughed. "You think I care if people like me? I didn't get into this business to be liked. I'm a cop because I believe in law and order. You're apparently a cop because you wanted to be a hero to the ladies." Holloway started rummaging through a file he'd brought in with him.

"I've been reading up on your career. I feel like I know you better than you know yourself."

Steve rolled his eyes. He couldn't wait to hear what twisted tale Holloway had next for him.

"It seems that this hero act is sort of your M.O. And here I thought just the criminals had those. But it's right here in black and white." He paused and then looked up at Steve. "You've been an inspector for what, four years now?"

Steve didn't respond; he just kept staring at Holloway.

"In those four years, you've managed to charm quite a few ladies involved in your cases. You got off to a quick start, too. Remember the Curtis Potts case? It was only your second month on the job."

Holloway paused and waited for Steve to tell him about the case, which he wasn't going to do. Steve got tired of the silence, so he mumbled, "He was accused of killing his boss."

Holloway nodded. "Good memory. You remember his wife, Janelle?"

Steve sighed. After Curtis had been arrested on suspicion of murder, the dead man's wife decided to take her revenge against the only person she could get to - Janelle. This led to Steve being assigned to protect Janelle, a situation the lonely, disgruntled housewife enjoyed a little more than she should have. Steve, not only being a gentleman and professional, but also not being interested in a married woman, tried to politely turn down her offer, though it took quite a bit of persuasion to make Janelle back off.

"I'll grant you this - at least you were protecting her at a motel. Same with that prostitute you had to protect, Beverly Landau. Though you did take her out around town and whatnot."

"People have to eat, you know," Steve muttered.

Holloway just snickered, shook his head, and moved on. "Then there was Kathryn Castro. Why don't you tell me about her?"

"Why don't _you_ tell me about her," Steve replied.

Holloway snickered again. "She reminds me a lot of Amy actually. Got caught up in someone else's crime, in this case her brother's, and was desperate for a little bit of refuge. She saw you as the epitome of good - her knight in shining armor. She still speaks highly of you all these years later. I got the feeling that she's still in love with you; in fact, she asked me to send her best...and her phone number." Holloway smirked.

Steve's heart sank. He'd completely forgotten about Kathryn and the brief fling they had. Holloway was right - that relationship did mirror his with Amy, although there was one big difference. He hadn't been in love with Kathryn - it was simply a fling. She also hadn't been as involved in the case; the only involvement she had was that the suspect was her brother, and at the end, he took her hostage to try and get away.

"Her case and Amy's had no similarities," was all Steve could think to say that wouldn't somehow incriminate him further. He was almost certain that Holloway had managed to charm every little detail out of Kathryn, none of which would make Steve's case look better.

"Really? They seemed to end in very much the same way - in a showdown between the suspect and you. Just you and a man with a gun...holding a woman you love hostage...I can't imagine either made you feel too good."

Steve glared at Holloway. "I suppose you wouldn't care at all if a crazy man had a weapon held on a woman and it was up to you to keep her alive. And I'm on trial here?! Maybe IA should open an investigation on you and how much you don't seem to care about the citizens of San Francisco."

Holloway leaned forward and glared back. "You insult me again, and I know I'll be nailing your ass to the wall," he barked.

He leaned back. "Caring has little to do with this. The biggest concern should have been safety, not only for the victim and suspect, but for the officers involved as well. You took absolutely none of that into consideration!"

Steve could feel himself coming unglued, so he clenched his fists in an effort to pull himself back together. "How was getting Amy out of that house not taking her safety into consideration? That's the only concern I had!"

"I know; that's the whole point. You didn't think about what could have happened to yourself, to Amy...you didn't think about how much better that rescue would have been had you found a phone or something and called for backup. This city is littered with public phones, and I bet there was one no more than a block away from you. In fact, I know there was, because I found one. It would have taken you all of a minute to get to that phone and make your call. You'd have been away from the scene for all of five minutes at the most. This whole thing Lieutenant Stone tried handing me about Amy being dead within the hour isn't even relevant. Unless doctors are required to be psychics now, they didn't know that for a fact. Plus, you got to the house what, a good two hours before she got to the hospital? Five minutes to make the call, no more than twenty to get several other people there...she would have been just fine."

"You can't predict that!" Steve took a deep breath as he could feel his anger rise.

"What condition was Amy in when you found her?"

"Read the report," was all Steve answered.

"Oh, I did, but I wanted to see if you'd change the story on me. No matter though." Holloway thumbed through a stack of papers until he found the incident report Steve had dictated to Bill Tanner. He pulled it out and began reading.

"So she was pretty beaten but conscious and coherent. She was also not in bad enough shape that she couldn't stand up, walk from one place to another, hold up a gun…"

"What is your point?" Steve angrily interrupted.

Holloway slammed the report down on the table. "My point is that Amy Johnson was not in immediate danger of dying, and your excuse for not sticking to procedure and waiting for backup is lame!"

Steve tried to refute this claim, but Holloway kept talking.

"Your total disregard for protocol not only got a suspect shot and killed instead of taken in peacefully, but it put the victim in further danger of being stabbed, and it got you shot!"

"You don't know what would have happened with backup there! Carpenter despised cops, and he was completely insane. What happened to me could have happened to several more people!"

"You don't know that it wouldn't have gone down peacefully either! Doing it the way you did though? Nothing good came out of that! This is the perfect example of why rules are put into place! But you didn't care about that! All you cared about was playing hero and saving your girlfriend!"

"She's not my girlfriend!" Steve shouted.

The two sat in silence - Steve trying to calm down after his unfortunate outburst, and Holloway trying to think of ways to spin this in his favor.

Before Holloway spoke again, he put all his papers together and made sure they were stacked neatly. Then he pulled out a plain manila folder and set it on top of his pile.

"Your attitude is kind of disappointing, you know Inspector? You could make even the biggest sap not believe in romance anymore. I mean, a beautiful woman pours her heart out to you, and you tell everyone she's not your girlfriend. I don't know everything about women, but they don't usually take that very well."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Steve snapped.

Holloway slowly pulled the letter out of the folder, placed it on the table, and pushed it forward toward Steve.

Without looking down at the paper, Steve picked it up. The second he glanced at it, he knew what it was - he'd looked at it enough. As awful as it was to see, he couldn't take his eyes off it, even if it was just a copy. The words were the same as were the feelings they brought out in him. A chill ran up his spine, and he suddenly felt cold all over. His stomach started protesting at the rise in emotions.

"Where did you get this?" Steve asked quietly, trying his damnedest to keep his composure but failing miserably.

Holloway had seen it in suspects before - you ask just the right question to get under their skin, and their body reacts against the brain's wishes. Sweat beads collect on their face, they fidget in the chair, and their breathing gets rapid and erratic. It was often the highlight of his days when he could make a man crack under pressure, but none before made him as happy as Steve was making him right now.

"I have ways, none of which you are privy to - although you should know that your partner was the first to make it known to your colleagues. Now...are you still going to sit there and tell me that you weren't in a relationship with Amy Johnson?"

All Steve could do was stare at the letter in his hands.

Holloway, satisfied with finally making Steve admit his feelings for Amy - even if they weren't spoken outwardly - yanked the letter out of Steve's hands.

"I'll need this as evidence," he said, putting the letter back in the folder and standing up. "We'll talk more later I'm sure. In the meantime, enjoy what's left of your career." He smiled and left the room.


	9. Chapter 9

As Mike had stood on the other side of the observation window and watched the massacre, his emotions had taken him on a roller coaster. He was everything from happy that Steve was standing up to Holloway's ridiculous assumptions and allegations to worried that Steve was opening his mouth too much, but as he watched the end of the interview, he had become a combination of heartbroken for Steve and repulsed at Holloway. He was also beyond mad that the sergeant had somehow gotten a hold of the letter.

As he began to storm out of the observation room, Lenny grabbed his arm. "Now take a deep breath and don't do or say anything you'll regret. You know you'll get better results if you calm down and think things through rationally."

Mike wanted to keep storming out of the room and start raising holy hell to anyone and everyone, but deep down he knew Lenny was right; a tirade would only hurt Steve. He had to figure out what game Holloway was playing and who his players were, but he had to do it with a clear head.

"You're right." He took a deep breath and looked at the psychiatrist. "Let me know if you get anything on Margaret Johnson."

"Will do, Mike," Lenny said as Mike walked out the door. He stood there for a moment, wondering himself what was going to happen to all these guys in what seemed to him like a game of psychological warfare. He then walked out of the room and toward the elevators; he suddenly needed some quiet.

Mike slowly opened the door and found his partner sitting at the table and staring off into space.

"How'd he get that letter, Mike?" Steve asked quietly, not looking up. "Did you give it to him?"

Mike's heart sunk. He knew Steve was in a bad place at the moment, but it hurt to think that Steve honestly even considered that he would do something like that. "I would never do that!"

Steve shook his head and looked down. "Of course not. I'm sorry."

"So am I, Buddy Boy. I know that opened some wounds. But you know damn well that I'm gonna find out how Holloway got ahold of that! The copy was in my office and the original's in the lab."

Steve smirked. "I hope he stole it from the lab. Then we can get him fired instead of me."

"You are not getting fired...and no matter where he got the letter, I'm going after him."

"C'mon, Mike. You were watching, weren't you? He's got me on so many things…"

Mike walked in the room. "Now don't you dare give up! It's not over 'til the very end, and we are nowhere close to this being done. I bet you when we find Margaret, we'll find out why this whole thing became an issue in the first place. I just have this feeling."

Steve, who'd been dangerously close to crying when Mike initially walked in the room, wiped the trace tears from his eyes and stood up. "What do you mean, that she called I.A. and told them I was seeing Amy? Would they have even cared?"

"Steve, we're talking about a woman who not only has a history of mental illness, but is emotionally disturbed enough to kidnap her own child. There's no telling what she said. Plus, Holloway is disturbed enough that he'd believe a well-fabricated lie."

He walked over to Steve and put his hand on his shoulder. "We will get through this. It may take some time, but we will come out on top. And we will get her back. First, we need to figure out how Holloway got that letter, okay?"

Steve simply nodded, and the two left the room and headed to their office.

* * *

Stilwell was sitting at his desk talking to a witness when Mike and Steve came into Homicide. Having never seen Steve, Mark thought he was just a well-dressed suspect until every inspector in the room started greeting him and welcoming him back.

_So this is the infamous Steve Keller_ , he thought as he watched Steve's welcoming. Looking at all his new co-workers and how they were so happy to see Steve in the office brought forth a small twinge of jealousy in Mark. No one had treated him quite as well in the short time he'd been with Homicide. In fact, most people either ignored him or, like Norm, were combative. As he sat and watched the display of affection, he wondered what was wrong with all these men. They embrace a man who's under investigation, yet they give him the cold shoulder? It didn't seem right, even if Steve was grieving.

His witness cleared his throat to get the inspector's attention. Embarrassed that he'd let himself get caught up in his own mind, he apologized and continued to listen but kept one eye on Steve as he followed Mike into his office.

When he'd walked in, Mike seemed angry at something, and Mark naturally worried that he'd found out the letter was missing. As he tried listening to his witness, he also tried to watch what Mike and Steve were doing. Were they talking about the case? Were they discussing something else? His desk was behind a support pillar in the middle of the room, which obstructed his view of Mike's office. Mark's heart started beating rapidly, and he decided that he needed to find out what was going on, so he excused himself from his witness, stood up, and walked toward Mike's office.

While Mark had been watching and worrying, Mike was in full detective mode. The first thing he did after walking into his office was open his filing cabinet and check the folder. He not only found the folder there but also the letter securely inside.

"You gonna have it tested for fingerprints?" Steve inquired.

"You're damn right I'm gonna have it tested! Someone had to have gotten into this and taken the letter," Mike growled, slamming the folder on his desk.

"You know, there is a chance that whoever took it got the one from the lab. Maybe you should ask Charlie if anything's been disturbed there."

Mike nodded. "He does still have the original; he was going to try something else since the only prints he found were yours and mine." Mike picked up the phone, but before he could dial, he saw Mark walking toward his office.

Even though the door was open, Mark politely knocked. "Am I interrupting something?" he asked, mindful of what Sergeant Holloway had told him about winning these people over.

Mike put the receiver on the cradle and waved the young man into the room. "Mark Stilwell, this is Steve Keller. Steve, this is our newest inspector." The two cordially shook hands.

"Nice to have you back. The guys have been telling me a lot of good things about you," Mark said, trying his best to sound sincere.

Steve wasn't sure how, in his current state of mind, to answer that, so he simply said thanks. An awkward silence ensued, so Mark cleared his throat and began stating why he was there in the first place.

"I found a man who claims to have rented Margaret Johnson her costume. He's at my desk right now; should I bring him in?"

"Absolutely!" Mike said, elated that they were finally starting to find pieces of the puzzle.

Steve's spirits perked up as well, though not as much as Mike's. "You really think he'll say something helpful?"

"Never know until you ask," Mike told him as Stilwell and the witness walked in.

"Lieutenant Stone, this is Bert Maldonado. He owns a theatrical shop over in Oakland, and he positively identified Mrs. Johnson from a photo array we showed him," Mark said, showing Mr. Maldonado a seat. He then backed up and stood over by the window.

Steve introduced himself to the man and then stood over by the filing cabinet. Mike took a seat behind his desk.

"So you remember seeing Margaret Johnson in your shop?" he began.

Bert nodded. "Absolutely. It was on April 25th; I remember because I found the receipt." He got into his shirt pocket and pulled out a folded sales slip, which he handed to Mike.

"I also remember her because she talked my damn ear off."

"About what?" Steve asked.

"The theater, acting. You know, I probably shouldn't say this, but she kind of reminded me of Norma Desmond in a way." Bert shuddered at the thought.

"Who?" Mark asked.

Steve snickered and Mike shook his head. "You need to get out to the movies more. Norma Desmond - the lead character in  _Sunset Boulevard._  She was...well...to put it mildly, crazy. She had this inability to move on from the past when she was a successful film star." Mike turned back to Bert. "How so?"

"She just kept talking about her career and how fabulous it was. She told me about every production she'd ever been in from here to Broadway and how fans adored her."

"Broadway?" Steve said, completely shocked. Broadway was not the picture Amy had painted of her mother's career.

"Oh yeah. I think she was honestly insulted that I didn't know who she was. She just kept name-dropping all these plays she'd been in and characters she'd played. I've been in the theater business for thirty years and have met just about every stage actor and director who was somebody in California, but I had never seen nor heard of this woman until that day." He shrugged. "I suppose some fly under the radar, but if she was as big as she claimed…" He shook his head.

Steve mouthed the word wow.

"Anyway, she told me her reason for coming in and renting this nurse's costume was because she had an audition for her, and I quote, big comeback. Never did tell me what play she was auditioning for."

"Probably  _One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest_ ," Steve scoffed.

Mike tried to refrain from laughing by clearing his throat. Mark thought both of their reactions were callous; he felt like they were proving her guilty before actually proving it with evidence.

"Did she say anything else? Like, maybe, where this audition was?" Mike inquired.

Bert shook his head. "No, that's about all she didn't say though. This was going to be her big comeback and it would get her biggest fan back. I guess I'm the curious type, so I ask who this fan is. She says her daughter. At this point I'm sorry I asked because she proceeds to tell me all about how she and her daughter fell out over her daughter not wanting to get into show business but instead marry some louse who was corrupting her."

Steve scrunched up his face at Margaret's insult. Stilwell made a mental note of his reaction.

Bert continued. "I'm no shrink, but she just seemed to be living in her own little drama. Too much fantasy does that to some people I guess. They spend their lives living in fake worlds, saying what other people write for them, then they can't handle the real world when they have to think for themselves and there's no one cheering them on."

"Lack of adoration does seem like it might be a pretty big factor here," Mike added.

"Just like Norma Desmond," Steve sighed. He ran his fingers through his hair and looked away.

Wanting to get back to the facts, Mark asked, "Did she ever come back and return the costume?"

Bert shook his head. "I hope you do find her, because she's paying for every day that costume isn't back in my possession!"

Mike stood up and looked at Stilwell. "Mark, have Mr. Maldonado write down his account of the incident." He then turned to Bert and shook his hand, thanking him for coming in.

"Say, I bet you fellas throw some wild Halloween parties! Come October, let me hook you guys up with costumes! I'm just right across the bridge!"

Mike grinned. "We'll keep that in mind," he said as an impatient Stilwell ushered Bert out the door.

Upon exiting, Mark closed the door, but left it enough ajar so that he could hear what was going in inside. He breathed a sigh of relief that no one had mentioned the letter or how it got out of Mike's office. He then offered Bert a cup of coffee so that he'd have an excuse to stand close to Mike's office door.

After the other two left, and thinking the door was latched, Steve grumbled, "I didn't figure that would lead anywhere but a dead end."

"Now, not necessarily. It may not have pointed us directly toward Amy, but it gave us some good insight into her mother. I think the key here is to get into that woman's head. I have Lenny working on that." He turned to Steve. "And if I read you right, you've been doing the same."

Steve rolled his eyes. "Not that it's gotten me anywhere. The biggest thing I learned is that she's quite an accomplished liar. I doubt even Amy knows about the stuff I heard."

He walked over to the window and gazed out, not really looking at anything. "I wonder how she'd feel to know her mother didn't even tell people she existed. Margaret's public seemed more important to her than her own daughter...and probably still is."

Mike looked at Steve, suddenly worried about where the boy's mind was wandering off to.

"You remember how that movie ends, don't you?" Steve finally murmured.

"Norma was arrested while everyone looked on in pity, wasn't it?"

Steve shook his head. "No, before that. What happened to William Holden's character."

"He was shot and ended up floating dead in the pool. Sadly, I've seen that scene a couple times here."

Steve slowly nodded. "Shot because he tried to leave her. If Amy tries to leave her…"

Mike put both of his hands on Steve's shoulders and gently shook him, forcing Steve to turn his attention away from the window. "Don't you go there! That isn't going to happen! This isn't Hollywood or some movie! We'll find them long before Margaret ever cracks up that bad."

They stared at each other for a moment before Steve started snickering. "I guess it doesn't matter anyway, right? Not like I love the girl or anything." He patted Mike on the arm and walked out of the office.

Mark, who had been pretending to add sugar and cream to his coffee, glanced over at Steve. He'd gone from worried to carefree in a split second.  _And they think this guy is stable enough to be back at work?_  he thought.  _He's dynamite just waiting for the right spark_.

He wandered back to his desk, which was near Steve's. While Bert Maldonado wrote out his witness account, Mark watched Steve put on his happy-go-lucky act with everyone around. He wondered if he could use what he heard, and what he was now witnessing, to his and Holloway's advantage...or if he even should.


	10. Chapter 10

_**Tuesday, May 7, 1974** _

Jeannie Stone was busy throwing things into a box when someone knocked on her dorm room door. "Come in!" she shouted.

"Thought I'd see if you needed a ride to the bus station," a red-haired coed asked, peeking her head in the door.

"Thanks, Gail, but I'm actually heading into Phoenix to visit someone before I head out of town."

"Oh yeah?" Gail raised her eyebrows several times. "Hot date?"

Jeannie stuck out her tongue. "Not exactly. Just a family friend who recently moved here. Hot date...ha!"

The two girls laughed and gave each other a hug. "Guess I'll see you in the fall then. If you do anything fun, write me! I am going to be so bored stuck here taking summer classes," Gail said.

"I'll make up some fantastic trip to Europe just for you," Jeannie teased.

"Thanks." Gail laughed and left the room. Jeannie finished throwing the remainder of the contents of her desk in a box and sealed it closed. She'd already sent most of her clothes and personal belongings ahead; all she had to do was ship this box off and then the summer was hers.

She wondered just how much of a fun summer it would be though. Things at home had seemed to fall apart, and she was worried what state she'd find Steve in when she got home. Not having talked to her father in a couple days, she wasn't sure if they'd made any progress in finding Amy or not. She hoped they had, but in case they hadn't, she hoped this little excursion she was about to make would perk up Steve. She was sure Amy wasn't the only person he was worried about.

Grabbing her suitcase, bag, and purse, she picked up the box and headed out the door to catch a cab.

A little over an hour later, her cab pulled into Biltmore Estates and up to a large, mid-1950's mansion that backed up to a golf course. Part of Jeannie was now more worried than ever, because people with this much money often bought their way through the courts. Amy and Steve would have a hard time fighting money like this if a custody battle took shape.

She paid the cab driver, who told her that she could leave her suitcase with him; he would personally come back and get her when she was done with her visit. Jeannie wasn't sure if trusting him was wise, but she took a chance; she'd memorized his name on the way over so she could fight back if he stole her things. Once he drove away, she looked up at the house and took a deep breath. The exterior looked spectacular, but would the inside match?

She rang the doorbell. A Hispanic lady in a maid's uniform answered the door.

Jeannie smiled. "Hi. I was wondering if Jasmine was home."

The maid stared at her. Jeannie wondered if she didn't speak English.

"The little girl?" the lady finally asked with a heavy Spanish accent.

Jeannie nodded. "Yes, is she here? I'm Jeannie Stone. I called a couple days ago and talked to Mr. Lynch."

"Señor Lynch no here," the lady muttered as she tried to close the door.

Jeannie pushed the door back open. "Mr. Lynch told me I could come by and see Jasmine today."

A middle-aged lady with scraggly graying hair came up behind the maid and brusquely interrupted. "You're the aunt?" She looked Jeannie up and down, obviously less than impressed by what she saw.

Jeannie was rattled by the woman's demeanor. "Um, yes. It's, uh...hard to explain. I'm twice removed. We haven't seen each other in years." She giggled nervously. Thinking that simply saying she was a family friend wouldn't work, Jeannie decided to embrace Jasmine's adoption and tell Beatrice's husband that she was one of Jasmine's aunts on her mother's side. The man readily bought it.

"When Mr. Lynch said that Jasmine had an aunt who was coming to see her, I thought he was kidding," the lady told her. "I mean, who'd purposely come see her?"

She waved Jeannie into the house. "What are you, sixteen?" she asked.

"Um, no, I'm twenty. And you are...?" She couldn't imagine who this overbearing woman could be.

"You don't need to know my age!" the woman screeched.

"No, I don't mean that. I mean, who are you?" Jeannie was already exasperated with this conversation.

"Jasmine's nanny, and I use the term loosely. What she needs is a drill sergeant. Follow me."

Jeannie followed the woman up a winding staircase to the second floor, all the while thinking how rude she was. Jasmine needing a drill sergeant? Granted, she'd only talked with the girl twice, but the impression she got was not one of an out of control brat. If anything, she was a lost, lonely child, the type who retreats within themselves when life gets hard.

At the end of a long hallway was a large, heavy-looking door. It didn't look particularly inviting or like the entrance to a child's bedroom. As Jeannie walked toward this mysterious ingress, she looked around at the hall and the other rooms contained within. There were elaborate paintings on the walls, each showing a happy moment of time. The doors to the other rooms were open, letting the bright Arizona sunshine spill out into the hallway.

Then there was the room at the end. Unlike the rest of the hallway, it was shrouded in darkness. In comparison, it appeared that the Lynch's were trying to hide a dark, evil secret in the room - one that didn't deserve sunlight or acknowledgement. The scene gave Jeannie a sick feeling.

Once they reached the room, the nanny, who hadn't even bothered to properly introduce herself, placed her hand on the door knob and began to turn it and open the door. Jeannie gently placed her hand on the woman's arm to stop her.

"Aren't you going to knock first?" she asked.

The lady gave her a slightly dirty look. "Why would I?" she scoffed.

Jeannie just shrugged and let it go. It was not her place to teach this woman proper manners.

Once the door was opened, Jeannie stepped just inside the room and was so shocked at the sight she gasped. Unlike the rest of the house, this room was barren. The walls were antique white and blank. There was nothing on the windows except a dull, dark-colored curtain which was open only a crack. There was a floor lamp in one corner and a twin mattress on a metal frame in the other. The bed had no headboard or any linens on it to speak of, save for a simple white sheet. Mike had told Jeannie what Beatrice said about how she was going to give Jasmine everything she had at her parent's house. Jeannie was certain this was not a duplicate bedroom; it looked more like a prison cell.

"Where are you?" the nanny asked, irritation in her voice. "You better not be hiding in the closet again!"

Jeannie watched as the woman threw open the door of a small closet. Like the room, it too was rather desolate. Only a few articles of clothing hung on hangers, and there was only one pair of shoes on the bottom. She felt like running out and buying this poor girl a whole new wardrobe, and she hadn't even seen her yet.

The nanny stood at the closet and looked down. "You get out of there!"

"Why?" a little voice asked snottily. "I like it in here. You can't fit in here." Then she snorted like a pig.

Jeannie was surprised. She recognized the voice as that of the sad little girl she'd talked to on the phone, but the tone was unexpectedly angry.

"You like it in the dark? What are you, a vampire?" She turned to Jeannie. "More like a demon child."

Jeannie was appalled. "Excuse me?" she snapped. "How dare you talk about a child like that!"

Jasmine, who was sitting on the floor of the closet, got on her hands and knees and peeked around the corner to see who else was in her room. "They sent me another shrink?" she asked, obviously annoyed.

Jeannie simply shook her head. This whole situation made her want to cry and yell at the same time. She glanced at the nanny. "Would it be okay if we had some time alone?" she asked, making it known that the lady's presence was no longer needed or appreciated.

"Oh, absolutely! You take all the time you need! Take her with you if you want." The nanny threw her hands up in the air and huffed out of the room.

"Ugh!" Jeannie grunted and turned her attention back to Jasmine.

"I don't need another shrink. I've had three already," Jasmine told her before retreating back into the closet.

Jeannie slowly wandered over to the closet and sat down on the floor so she could be more at eye level with Jasmine.

"Where did you learn the word shrink?" she inquired, finding that a curious word for a six year old to use.

"She calls them that. So does everyone else. Well, except for the maid. I don't think she even knows English. At least my other maid could talk right."

"Oh," Jeannie replied, disappointed already in Jasmine's living arrangement. "So, you're Jasmine, right?"

She simply nodded without looking up. She was busy doing something on the floor, but Jeannie couldn't tell what in the dark.

"Are you here to fix me?" Jasmine asked.

"Fix you? Are you broken?"

"I guess. Aunt Bea - that's what I'm supposed to call her - she says I need fixed. You fix things when they're broken, so I guess I'm broken."

"Well, someone in this house needs fixed, but it's certainly not you! But I'm not here for that anyway. I'm Jeannie...Mike's daughter."

Jasmine stopped what she was doing and slowly looked up. She looked at Jeannie for a long while then asked, "Grandpa Mike?"

Jeannie nodded. "In San Francisco. Do you remember me telling you that I went to school here? School's over for the summer, so I thought I would come see how you were since you live here now too."

Jasmine stood up and walked out of the closet. She then turned around and looked at Jeannie, who was still sitting on the floor. "You know my mommy and daddy?"

She nodded. "Your daddy is a good friend of mine, and I know he's worried about you."

Jasmine stood and stared at Jeannie, who wasn't sure what to do or say. The little girl then broke down into tears. Jeannie scooted over to her and embraced her, letting the child cry on her shoulder.

"I miss them," Jasmine finally blubbered.

"I know they miss you too." As she held the girl, Jeannie looked around the room and thought about how she'd break this disastrous news to Steve. No matter what she said, she had a feeling he wouldn't take it well...or quietly.

Jasmine picked up her head and looked at Jeannie. "Are you taking me home? I want to go home." She plastered a frown on her face.

Jeannie frowned as well. "I wish I could. I can tell living here isn't much fun."

Jasmine rubbed her eyes. "Everyone here is so mean to me! Aunt Bea ignores me and gets mad when I get in her way. She's like my old mom, except she doesn't hit me. Harriet is mean too. Amy was so much nicer."

"Is Harriet your nanny?" Jeannie asked, remembering that Amy had been Jasmine's nanny prior to her father dying.

Jasmine nodded. "She keeps telling me she's going to sell me to the circus so I can go live with all the other freaks."

Jeannie's jaw dropped. "She calls you a freak?!"

"She doesn't like my drawings. She thinks they're creepy. I think Lawrence is creepy."

"Who's Lawrence?"

"Aunt Bea's husband."

Every time Jasmine said Aunt Bea, Jeannie wanted to giggle. She had doubts that this Aunt Bea was anything like Opie's. "How is he creepy?"

"He looks at me weird! And he always calls me Baby Doll and touches my chin." Jasmine shivered. "I don't like it."

Jeannie thought that sounded odd, but then maybe Jasmine was blowing something innocent out of proportion. He'd sounded normal over the phone.

"Has it been four months yet?" she asked sadly.

It had barely been a week. "Sorry. I think there's still a couple months to go," Jeannie said, trying to spare the girl more sorrow.

Jasmine rubbed her eyes some more and yawned.

"Tired, huh?" Jeannie asked, concerned with just how tired the girl looked.

Jasmine nodded. "That bed is hard," she said, pointing to the corner.

Jeannie stood up and walked over to the bed. Sitting down, she felt like she'd just sat down on a solid piece of wood that someone had haphazardly thrown cotton balls on in a lazy effort to soften it. She then sighed at the fact that these people, according to her father, had promised to give Jasmine the same life she'd had with her parents, and this is what they gave her instead. Then she started chuckling at the irony. Maybe they were giving her the same life after all.

"What's funny?" Jasmine asked, walking over to Jeannie.

"Oh, nothing. Say, my bus doesn't leave for a few more hours - what do you say we have some fun before I leave? I think we could both use some cheering up."

"Okay. I was working on a drawing. You want to draw with me?"

"Sure." Jeannie stood up and then sat down on the floor. Since there wasn't a desk or table in the room, she figured the hardwood floor was the only place to color, though she wondered if the bed wouldn't also double as a table, hard as it was.

Jasmine walked back into the closet and grabbed papers and crayons off the floor. She brought them out and set them down in front of Jeannie.

"I'm making two kinds of pictures," she announced as she started separating the papers into two piles. "This pile is pictures for Mommy and Daddy," she explained, pointing to the pile on the right. "And these are mine."

Jeannie picked up a few of the pictures in the pile for Steve and Amy. They were the typical happy scenes that kids liked to draw and parents like to hang on the refrigerator.

"Your mommy and daddy will love these! I can take some of them with me and give them to Daddy."

Jasmine smiled and grabbed a blank piece of paper.

Jeannie then looked at the other pile. Before she even picked up a drawing, she could tell this pile varied wildly from the other. Instead of pinks and yellows, this pile was full of reds and blacks. What she eventually gazed upon was a picture not unlike the ones Jasmine had drawn for Judge Harding. Angry squiggles in angry colors adorned the paper. Instead of happy faces, they were irate. There was a disturbing death theme scattered throughout several of the drawings - tombstones and stick figures with x's for eyes lined the bottoms. She shivered as she looked through the pile.

"One of the shrinks told me I should draw how I feel. So I do."

Jeannie wanted to cry. This poor girl seemed so sweet and loving, yet she was clearly full of hate and bitterness due to the way most of the adults in her life seemed to be treating her. Mike had told her that he feared she'd have a long road of recovery ahead of her, but she wondered if he realized just how bad the situation was.

The last drawing in the pile was clearly a scene from the motel room she'd been held in by Paul. There was a small stick figure with yellow hair sitting in a chair with her hands tied behind her back. In front of her stood a man with wild brown hair. His mouth was in the shape of an o, and there were red wavy lines coming out of his head. Off in the corner, two dead bodies lay.

"What's going on in this one?" Jeannie asked, tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

Jasmine got on her knees and scooted over to Jeannie. "That's when I was in that motel with that man that hurt Mommy and Daddy," she said with little emotion in her voice.

"Oh. So this is you?" Jeannie asked, pointing to the girl in the chair.

Jasmine nodded and went back to her newest drawing, which Jeannie noticed was a happy scene.

"Who are the people in the corner?"

Without looking up, Jasmine said, "Mommy and Daddy."

Jeannie took in a very ragged breath. The tears were starting to escape her eyes and run down her cheeks.

"You do know they're alright, don't you, Jasmine?"

"I guess. Daddy is out of the hospital...is Mommy?"

Jeannie was at a loss for words. She didn't know how much to reveal, and she worried if she said the wrong thing, Steve would be upset.

"Well...no, she's not. She's still healing, but she'll be fine soon enough!"

There was a long pause. Jeannie set the drawing down on the floor and watched Jasmine continue to color. Soon enough, a single tear hit the paper.

"What if that man comes back for her?" the little girl asked in almost a whisper.

As tears ran down her own cheeks like streams, Jeannie had Jasmine come and give her a hug. She picked up the drawing once again.

"Let me show you what's wrong with this scene. You have Mommy and Daddy over here in the corner, but you should have the bad man over there because he's dead. He can't hurt Mommy or Daddy ever again, okay? They're both going to live for a long, long time! And I know they both wish they could be here too, but the doctors want Amy to stay in the hospital for a while longer, and Steve just went back to work with Mike."

"So why are you crying then?"

Jeannie paused. "Because I'm sad. I'm sad that you had to go through all that, and I'm sad that you're not happy here. But it won't be long before we're all happy again in San Francisco, I just know it!" Jeannie didn't want to think of the alternative.

The two girls embraced for a moment longer, after which Jasmine looked at Jeannie and asked, "So Grandpa and Daddy are out catching bad guys again?"

Jeannie chuckled. "They sure are. Maybe you should draw them pictures for their offices. They could use something fun at the station."

Jasmine smiled at the thought of having her drawings with Steve and Mike. "Okay." She sat back down and grabbed for a new piece of paper, handing Jeannie one in the process.

"How 'bout you fix this one too to show how things actually came out?" Jeannie mentioned, pushing the motel scene toward Jasmine.

Jasmine looked at it and then crumpled it up and threw it in the corner. "Okay," she agreed.

* * *

An hour later, Beatrice walked into Jasmine's bedroom and found the two girls laying on the floor coloring and laughing. She was slightly taken aback at the sight of Jasmine having a good time.

"What is going on here?" she asked, her disgusted attitude coming out in her voice.

Jasmine looked up at Beatrice. "This is my Aunt Jeannie. She lives in San Francisco with Mommy and Daddy. And you're interrupting."

"Jasmine…" Jeannie said, slightly scoldingly.

"They're not your mommy and daddy! How many times do I have to tell you that?" Beatrice snapped. She then turned to Jeannie. "My husband told me you were coming. You're lucky you got that lousy dipsomaniac on the phone instead of me."

Jeannie didn't want to lead on that she had no idea what Beatrice had just said, but she gathered that her and her husband weren't exactly best friends. She stood up and took a few steps toward Beatrice.

"You're not doing her any favors by being here, you know. I've been trying to get her to break her ties with California for a week. It'll do her good not to dwell on a life she'll never live again."

Jeannie felt personally insulted. "Is that right? And how do you know that? I was told that you had four months with her. There's no guarantee that you'll get to keep her after that."

Beatrice bore a hole right through Jeannie, making her feel horribly uncomfortable. "I'm rich, they're not. Do the math." She then looked over at Jasmine. "Why is she so happy?"

Jeannie just stared at Beatrice; she wasn't going to dignify her comment with a response.

Beatrice shook her head. "I told that shrink she was manic-depressive. Disturbed one minute and laughing the next. Harriet thinks she's possessed by the devil, but she's clearly manic-depressive."

Sometimes Jeannie was not being good at keeping her mouth shut when it came to something she was passionate about. Now was one of those times. "First of all, she's laughing because she's happy! It's the first time she's been happy all week! That should tell you something, but I don't think it will. Secondly, you obviously have no idea what manic-depressive disorder is, because one bout of happiness because someone she's comfortable with is around does not make someone manic-depressive!" She took a breath to regain her composure.

"I'm sorry her being sad is annoying to you, but maybe you should have thought of that before you insisted on ruining everyone's lives!" She folded her arms over her chest and stared at Beatrice, daring her to have a comeback.

"Let me show you something…Jeannie, was it?"

Jeannie nodded. Beatrice motioned for her to follow. The two women walked a few feet down the hall to another closed door. The older lady opened it to reveal another dark room. She flipped the light switch and just like when Jeannie saw Jasmine's room, she gasped out loud.

"I see you're shocked. Didn't realize what a little hellion that child is, did you?"

Jeannie looked around the room. If she hadn't known better, she would have thought the room had suffered through an earthquake or tornado. There were pieces of what appeared to be broken pottery scattered around the floor. A ripped painting was propped up against the wall. Drawers from a dresser were scattered and smashed. The walls, while the same antique white as in Jasmine's room, were chaotically covered in marker squiggles.

"Are you saying Jasmine did this?" She couldn't believe a kindergartener was capable of such destruction, though she had learned about different things emotionally-disturbed children were capable of in her child psychology class.

"Who else? I tried giving her a nice room, and this is how she repaid me. She went from sitting in the corner moaning and crying about those people she thinks are her parents to lashing out and destroying the room in the matter of half an hour. She's not even trying to be a nice little girl! She embarrasses me in front of my friends, she damages my property, and the things she says about her family! My nephew worked hard to give her the perfect life, and yet she'd rather hold his memory in contempt and worship some cop she met less than a week ago. Now tell me that isn't a sign she's a disquieted child!"

Jeannie was extremely thankful Steve wasn't in her place at that moment. "I think the word you're looking for is troubled, and the only reason she's troubled is because she's been through so many changes lately! You took her away from the only people in the whole world she trusted, yet you expect her to be a happy-go-lucky kid? Look, I'm sorry she did all this, but perhaps you should have expected it."

She was too angry to stay there anymore. She turned on her heels and left the room, walking back to Jasmine. Standing at the doorway, she asked, "How would you like to go shopping?"

Jasmine looked up from the floor. "I can leave the house?"

"Absolutely!"

Jasmine threw down her crayons and leapt off the floor. Jeannie took her hand and the two walked quickly down the hallway toward the stairs. As they passed Beatrice, Jeannie let her know that she'd bring Jasmine back in a few hours, though she also added that it would serve her right if she never brought her back. They then descended the stairs and headed for the front door.

As they walked outside, they ran into a middle-aged man with well-coifed graying hair who wearing what Jeannie decided was the loudest jacket and pants she'd ever seen. His tie was no sight for sore eyes either. She suddenly felt like the next time she saw Steve, she'd have to apologize for ever thinking some of his ties were wild.

The man saw Jasmine and leaned down to her. She in turn clutched Jeannie's hand tighter.

"Well, hi there, Baby Doll," Lawrence Lynch cooed as he touched Jasmine's chin with his right index finger.

Jeannie felt her stomach do a somersault. The whole scene oozed with disgusting inappropriateness.

"Where are you off to?" he asked.

"I'm running away," Jasmine quipped.

Lawrence laughed. "You're adorable." He ran his fingers through her hair. Jeannie could feel the poor girl tense up, so she cleared her throat in an effort to distract him.

It worked. Lawrence looked up at the young woman. He quickly rose to his feet and smiled. "Hello to you," he said in a slightly lecherous tone. "And you are…?"

Jeannie smiled in the same way a baby smiles when it has gas. "Jeannie Stone."

"Jasmine's aunt! I certainly didn't expect someone so young...and pretty." He leered at her.

She laughed uncomfortably. "Yeah, well, uh, thanks for letting me come see her. We're on our way to get something for lunch. We'll be back by dinner time." She attempted to walked around the man, but he moved over into her escape route.

"Why don't I take you ladies out? I know a few little hideaway places tourists never find."

"I'm hardly a tourist, Sir," Jeannie snapped back. "Besides, I'd like to spend a little alone time with my niece before I have to leave town. Thanks for the offer though; maybe some other time." She pulled hard on Jasmine's arm and quickly walked away from Lawrence toward the Biltmore Mall and safety.

_We might just keep walking toward San Francisco_ , she thought.

* * *

Since her bus left at seven, Jeannie figured she better get Jasmine home by six. It was not something she was looking forward to, but she knew Mike wouldn't like bailing her out of jail for kidnapping either.

So at a couple minutes to six, Jeannie and Jasmine, who had almost a completely new wardrobe in her possession, walked up to the Lynch mansion.

"Do I hafta go back?" Jasmine asked sadly.

Jeannie knelt down to her level. "'Fraid so."

Jasmine turned to look at the house and the happy expression she'd had on her face completely faded.

"Wait, you need to choose what pictures you want me to take and give to Steve and Amy," Jeannie mentioned.

Jasmine's face brightened up a bit at that thought, so the two snuck back into the house, which seemed eerily quiet and deserted. As they ascended the staircase, they ran into Harriet, who gave them no more than a passing glance as they walked by. Jeannie rolled her eyes and followed Jasmine into her bedroom.

The pile of drawings sat on the floor where Jasmine started sifting through them, deciding which she wanted to send with Jeannie. While she waited, Jeannie started hanging up the new clothes she'd bought Jasmine. She also kept looking at the other pile of drawings, contemplating whether or not she should take a few of those as well. After hanging all the clothes, she decided she would, even if she never showed them to Steve.

"Jasmine, would it be okay if I took a few drawings from this pile too?"

Jasmine gave her a curious look, but told her it was okay - she could always draw more. Jeannie chose a few of the more telling pictures, Jasmine chose a few of her favorites from the happy pile, leaving Jeannie with instructions on whom they should go to.

Jeannie put them in her purse and gave Jasmine a hug. The realization that her fun and happiness were over was more than Jasmine could take. She started crying again.

"Tell Mommy and Daddy and Grandpa I miss them."

Jeannie wiped some tears off Jasmine's face. "I will...but you know, you can call us any time. Mike said Steve gave you his phone number, and I'll give you mine."

Jasmine shook her head. "They won't let me. They said California is long distance and that costs too much money."

"Ohhh. Is that so? Well, don't tell anyone, but there's a way around that." As she wrote Mike's phone number down, she explained collect calls to Jasmine. They practiced with Jeannie playing the operator and Jasmine playing herself. When they were done, Jeannie told her that there's always an operator working, so even if she could only call at three in the morning, make the call anyway. Seeing that Jasmine felt a little better now that she could possibly contact the outside world, Jeannie left, feeling good that she could at least make life a little more livable for Jasmine, even if it was only for a day.

An hour later, as she sat on the bus waiting for it to start its journey home, she got out the pictures Jasmine had decided to give to everyone. She smiled as she studied them - happy stick figures doing happy family things. Jeannie felt a warmth at how much Jasmine loved her adoptive family - and they her - and how she was able to achieve this even with a lady-killer like Steven Keller. _Even the little ones are vulnerable to his charms_ , she thought as she laughed.

As the bus pulled away from the station, Jeannie got a dictionary out of her bag. She opened up to the D's and looked up the word dipsomaniac. "Huh," she muttered under her breath. "Why couldn't she have just said drunk?"


	11. Chapter 11

_**Tuesday, May 7, 1974** _

"Nothing? There can't be nothing!" Mike shouted into the phone, exasperated.

Steve was brought out of his report-typing trance and wandered into his partner's office.

"Run them again," Mike said into the receiver.

"Mike, I ran them three times already. The only prints on the original letter and the cabinet are yours and Steve's, and only yours are on the copy," Charlie in the lab explained.

"Okay, I get that mine and Steve's are the only ones on the original, but how can mine be the only ones on the copy? Drake touched it, Tanner and Lessing and Haseejian touched it!"

"It doesn't make any sense to me either, Mike, but it's the truth. I guess you have a little more investigating to do."

"Yeah, I guess I do," Mike answered.

"Hey, if you find anything I can help with, let me know and I'll put a rush on it. If we do have a dirty cop in our ranks, I want him gone as much as you," Charlie told him.

Mike sighed. "Thanks, Charlie. I appreciate it." He hung up the phone and rubbed his face with his hands.

"Nothing on the letters, huh?" Steve asked, closing the door and sitting down.

"Or the file cabinet. Can you believe that?"

"Whoever it was is obviously smart enough to wear gloves."

"How am I going to find someone who leaves no evidence behind?" Mike angrily asked.

Steve could tell he really wasn't thinking straight. "Well, let's talk this out then." He stood up and walked to the cabinet. "The only two people who have ever been in this cabinet are you and me, right? You've never told anyone else they could freely get into it any time they wanted?"

Mike shook his head. "It is _my_ office."

"Okay, so whoever got in here wouldn't have wanted to do it with other people around because someone would notice and start asking questions."

Mike nodded. "Go on."

"When did you first put the letter in here?"

"Tuesday after I showed it to the guys."

Steve began wandering around the office. "Who knew it was there?"

"I doubt anyone did. No one was in here when I put it in the folder, and I didn't tell anyone where it was."

Steve thought for a moment. "So either someone spied on you, or they just took a good guess. Had to have been someone who knew you had it though, which narrows it down to…"

"Only Tanner, Lessing, Haseejian, Stilwell, Drake, and Perez. They were the only ones in that meeting. No one else saw it."

Steve didn't consider Bill, Lee, or Norm suspects, but he knew never to rule out anyone without evidence. "So was there ever a time when one of those guys was around when no one else was? And at that time, your office door was opened or unlocked?"

Mike leaned forward in his chair and rubbed his eyes. "I was here every day between Tuesday and Friday, but so was everyone else. I was the first to arrive and the last to leave."

"What about Saturday or Sunday?"

"I wasn't here Sunday, and the door was locked."

"You were here Saturday though, weren't you? Was anyone else?" Steve asked.

Mike paused then nodded. "Yeah. Bill was in and out...as was Stilwell." Mike voice took a suspicious turn.

Steve picked up on it. "The new guy?"

Mike stood up. "Yeah….yeah, and that would make sense."

"Okay, now you're going to have to enlighten me," Steve told him.

Steve sat down and Mike took his place wandering around the office.

"He's a real stickler for the rules. I think he was ready to hang you purely on hearsay simply because you did something against the rules. He's also desperate to please...someone...so if he thinks he can weed out bad cops or something…"

Steve turned around and glanced out the window into the bullpen. "You think he's desperate enough to make a name for himself that he'd eagerly become Holloway's sycophant?"

"I hate to think it...but yeah, I do."

Steve turned back around. "So what do we do then? Not like he's going to come clean just because we asked nicely, especially with no evidence."

"No. We're going to have to be patient with this one. Holloway is smart enough that if he is using Stilwell as a mole, he's going to make sure no one sees them together or can put them in contact with each other in any way."

"So we have to be smarter than him...not that that's a real problem," Steve muttered, rolling his eyes. "What do you think we should do?"

Mike looked straight at Steve. " _You're_ not going to do anything. I don't want you anywhere near this! I'm not giving Holloway any more ammunition. You're just going to be a casual observer."

Steve sighed. "Is that all I'll ever be anymore? Like a benchwarmer - I get to watch the game from the front row and learn from it, but I never get to play and put what I learned into practice. All because I did what millions of men before me have done without incident - fall in love."

Steve stood up and Mike put his hands on his partner's shoulders. "You are still very much a part of everything that goes on around here! But I want to keep it that way, and if you don't lay low with everything concerning IA or Amy, you won't even be a benchwarmer. This will all go away soon enough. Have some faith in me." Mike grinned.

Steve chuckled. "It's not you I've lost faith in."

"Good...I guess. Look, I have an idea. Just go along with me, okay?"

"Anything you say," Steve answered.

Mike grabbed his overcoat and hat and walked out of his office with Steve in tow. The two approached Norm's desk. "You eaten lunch yet, Haseejian?" Mike asked his sergeant.

"Well, yeah, but…"

"I'm buyin'!" Mike told him.

Norm stood up. "Then I'm eatin'." He grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair.

Stilwell, who'd been listening in from his desk, gave Norm a curious look. "If you already ate, why are you eating again?"

Steve chuckled. "Have you looked at him lately? Not exactly the only three meals a day type, you know."

"Besides, when the boss says he's buyin', you eat again," Norm added, following Mike and Steve out the door.

Stilwell sat and watched the three leave. Jealousy started rearing its ugly head once more as he wondered why no one had ever invited him out to lunch...and why was Steve not in a terrible mood? Did seeing the letter not get to him? He wondered just how good Holloway was at his job if he couldn't even use a prime piece of evidence like that letter to crack an opponent...or was Steve just that big of a jerk?

* * *

At the hot dog stand across the street, the three detectives grabbed some nourishment and had a seat nearby. Without beating around the bush, Mike looked at Norm and asked, "How do you feel about spying?"

"Depends on who I'm spying on," Norm said, taking a bite from his hot dog.

"Mark Stilwell," Mike replied.

"Then I like spying just fine," Norm told him.

Steve chuckled as Mike told him the reason for the question. "Now, this is just between you, me, and this tree here. As far as anyone's concerned, Steve has no knowledge of anything that's going on."

Norm looked at Steve. "He does look pretty oblivious." He snickered.

"Hey, be nice. I'm in mourning. You shouldn't pick on me."

Norm rolled his eyes, and Mike tousled Steve's hair playfully.

"Well, you can count on me, Mike. I have no time for guys like them," Norm said.

Mike grinned.

* * *

Mike and Steve walked back into the building and took the elevator up to four. Before they could enter Homicide, Sergeant Drake came out of Missing Persons across the hall.

"Just the man I wanted to see," he said to Mike. He then turned to Steve. "And glad to have you back on board as well, Steve."

The two men shook hands.

"You have some news?" Steve asked eagerly.

"Well, I'm not a hundred percent sure where it will lead us, but it could fill in quite a big piece of the puzzle. We found Bryan Palermo."

"The lawyer? Where?" Steve's eyes lit up.

"Actually, he found us. A couple patrolmen were out on their regular walking beat in Chinatown when he ran up to them muttering something about being tired of running and needing protection. They were ready to take him to the psych ward at General until he told them his name. They brought him here instead."

"Needing protection from what?" Mike inquired.

"Or who?" Steve added.

The three gave each other knowing looks. "You don't think he'd be running from her, do you?" Drake asked.

Both Homicide inspectors gave him the same affirmative look.

"Well, maybe we should just ask him," he said, walking into Missing Persons with Mike and Steve following.

Before they waked into the interview room where the lawyer was cooling his heels, Steve stopped Mike. "Do I get to play too, or do I have to sit this one out?"

Mike looked in his eyes and very seriously asked, "Can you keep your emotions in check?"

Steve was surprised by the question. "What are you getting at?" he asked, perturbed.

"Look, Buddy Boy, don't take it the wrong way, but we don't exactly know what he's going to tell us about Amy, and I know if it's anything bad, you won't take it well. But you can't show your hand in there! You have to act like an outsider to the case. Can you do that?"

"Of course I can!" Steve snapped. "This guy is just like any other witness, and this is just an average case. I've got this, Mike. Stop worrying." He walked into the interview room after Drake.

Mike shook his head. There was that act again. Steve seemed to be changing his moods at the drop of a hat. Mike couldn't see this act holding out much longer, especially if Palermo said Amy was in harm's way. He'd been looking forward to this interview in the hopes that it would fill in large parts of the puzzle; now he feared it.

He walked into the room and took a seat across from Palermo and next to Drake. Steve stayed standing in the corner.

"Mr. Palermo, this is Lieutenant Stone and Inspector Keller from Homicide," Sergeant Drake informed the lawyer.

Palermo looked straight at Steve and said, "I'm sorry, Man, I really am."

Steve looked questioningly at him while Mike and Drake exchanged curious glances.

"Why are you apologizing to me?" Steve asked him, worry quickly washing over him.

"You're the one she was trying to get Amy away from, aren't you?" He chuckled. "She told me all these horrible things about you. I honestly thought you were some lowlife wife-beater or something. I wish I would have realized what a liar she is. Some lawyer I am." He shook his head in disgust at himself.

"Yeah...well…" was all Steve could say. Anything else would have put him in a deeper hole. He was just glad Palermo hadn't told him Amy was dead.

"Tell you what, Mr. Palermo, why don't you make it up to Inspector Keller by telling us everything that happened so that we can find Amy and bring her home," Drake suggested.

Palermo nodded. He started to speak, but then stopped himself. He did this three times.

"Is something wrong, Mr. Palermo?" Mike asked. He could tell the man was nervous as could be.

"I...I'm just not sure where to start the story," he answered.

"Start wherever you think would be helpful." Mike smiled, hoping to put the man at ease by not making this seem like an interrogation.

"I just...I feel like I have to explain myself - why I did it in the first place." He looked up at Steve again. "I really do feel horrible."

"Then start talking," Steve grumbled, growing impatient with the runaround.

Palermo took a deep breath and began. "A year before Glen died…"

"Who's Glen?" Drake interrupted.

"Johnson, Amy's father. He owned a law firm in LA," Steve explained. Drake nodded his understanding.

"A year before he was killed, I went into their firm looking for an internship. I'd heard great things about Mr. Johnson and his partners and was desperate to get in with a successful firm. I camped out in front of their door for a week until I finally charmed the secretary into giving my resume to the partners. It took another week for Glen to be annoyed enough to let me come in and talk with him. He was impressed by my tenacity - said if I put even half the effort into my cases that I did just getting the job, I'd make one hell of a lawyer. So he brought me on."

"Well aren't you just a regular Perry Mason," Steve heckled. Mike turned around gave him a shaming glare. Steve just looked at the floor.

"It's okay, Lieutenant; I deserve it. I'd be mad too if I were him."

Mike wanted to say something, but he decided that it was best to just let this go.

"Anyway," Palermo continued, "I spent most of that time just assisting on cases and doing the grunt work, but Glen took me under his wing and showed me the ropes. We spent a lot of time together, so I got to hear all about his family and home life." He stopped his story and took on a forlorn look.

"Is everything okay, Mr. Palermo?" Mike asked.

He nodded. "Call me Bryan, and yeah...it's just...you know what they say about twenty-twenty vision. Well...almost immediately, I could tell Glen wasn't happy at home. Most of the other married men in the office would speak of their wives, and when they did, it was in a positive light. It took me two weeks to even learn that Glen was married. He'd either never mention Margaret, or when he did, it was almost disparagingly. Not that he flat out badmouthed her, but it wasn't necessarily flattering either. The weirdest thing was that it was like, I don't know, he'd be married some times but not others."

"How does that work? My wife makes sure I always know I'm married," Drake quipped. Mike chuckled and Steve managed a smile.

"I don't know, but his wedding ring would disappear and reappear. The things he'd say about her would go from unflattering when he wasn't wearing the ring to almost sorrowful when he was. Like, he loved her, but he was frustrated with her. You know, at first, I thought this woman must be some bitch or kook from the things he said, but a few months into my employment, I met her, and she seemed to go out of her way to be friendly. I felt sorry for her, especially since her husband was cheating on her."

Steve's eyes opened wide. "Cheating? Did Margaret tell you that?" The picture Amy painted of her father was not that of a cheater, although Steve could hardly blame him for finding someone more sane.

Palermo shook his head. "Saw it for myself on several occasions. The woman even had the guts to come into his office and pick him up for dates! Everyone in the office knew who she was, but no one cared a bit. At first I thought it was callous, but I think I get it now. He really did seem happier around her."

"Do you know if Margaret knew or not?" Steve asked, curious if that was a breaking point for her and caused her to go off the deep end.

"Never said, but I have a feeling she did. I think that's another reason I felt bad for her. I was kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place with those two. Glen was so good to me and my career; I wouldn't be where I am...or was...without his support, but I also felt some kind of loyalty toward Margaret as well. She too helped me. She helped me network with clients - introduced me to a lot of her acting pals who needed legal counsel on business matters."

He sighed. "Professionally...and a little personally...I felt like I owed them, so when Margaret called me up and told me her daughter was in trouble and she needed help getting her out of a bad relationship, I said yes for Glen's sake if nothing else. Glen adored Amy." He looked over at Steve again. "He may not have spoken highly of his wife, but he sure did of his daughter. Couldn't brag enough about her. If he had been alive, and he turned to me for help with her, I would have done it in a heartbeat. I just…"

He started getting emotional and looked down at the table. No one else in the room knew what to say, so they just sat in awkward silence hoping that Bryan would start speaking again.

He looked back up at the men. "She's crazy! I think Glen had been trying to tell me all along that she was nuts, but he apparently never felt he could say it. But she's insane! She lies like no one I've ever seen, and as a lawyer, I've seen a lot of liars! I should have seen her coming a mile away."

"What exactly did she ask you to do?" Mike inquired.

"Well, like I said, she called me last Thursday and told me that Amy's cop boyfriend was abusive and that he'd finally managed to put her in the hospital because he found out she was in love with another man. She also said that all the abuse had caused her to lose her mind. I tell you, the woman should have won an Emmy for her performance. I really thought she was sincere. I ask her what I could possibly do from Los Angeles. That's when she tells me about the power of attorney. She wanted me to look it up and enforce it, because..."

He paused and looked up at Steve. "Because she told me you'd brainwashed her so much that she'd die before she left you. Margaret wanted to save Amy before she died."

Steve reacted in a manner Mike found both strange and worrisome - he laughed.

"That must be her favorite tune - the 'Steve Keller is Brainwashing My Daughter Blues'. She sure sings it enough."

Mike felt bad for his partner. The boy had heard enough doubt about his relationship in the past week to make anyone go a little crazy, and now he was hearing it again at the worst possible time.

"She really does despise you," Bryan muttered sheepishly. "To say the things she said about you...and them all being lies..." Bryan looked down at the table. "I thought I was not only saving a woman from an abusive relationship, but also saving Margaret from her loneliness. Ever since Glen died, she seemed extra desperate to hold on to Amy. I never would have guessed how desperate; I don't think anyone would have. It's odd though - looking back, I realize that Margaret never mentioned Amy when Glen was still alive. Never really mentioned her afterward either, other than the fact that she was not happy she was going to Berkeley. Acted like it was a personal vendetta against her mother or something. Yet I initially thought she sincerely wanted to save her child." He shook his head.

Mike turned and looked at Steve, trying to figure out his reaction to all this. Steve kept a professional demeanor, making it difficult for even Mike to read him.

"Did she want you to do anything else?" Steve asked, showing little emotion.

"I arranged the ambulance, plane to LA, and the hospital room." He suddenly looked very seriously at Steve.

"You have to believe that I had no idea she was drugging Amy! I honestly thought Amy'd lost her mind...until she woke up in the ambulance fully coherent."

Steve left his position against the wall and took a seat next to Bryan. "She woke up?" he asked with a hint of desperation in his voice.

Bryan could tell Steve needed to hear some good news. "The hospital had given her a sedative about a half hour before I got there. They told me she was very agitated and distraught and asked to be knocked out. The entire time we were loading her into the ambulance and halfway to Bakersfield, she was dead to the world. It was fortunate."

"Why? What happened?" Now Steve was the one getting agitated.

"Margaret sat up front with the driver. We were on our way to the airport when she told him to drive past it and keep going south. At this point, I start panicking, because there was a private medical jet waiting for us there. But I stupidly kept my mouth shut because I wanted to see where this was going. Well, the driver wouldn't just keep driving, so Margaret pulled a gun on him. I kept my mouth shut then mainly out of shock...and fear."

"The guy decided to keep driving," Mike added.

Bryan nodded. "Drove until we got to Gilroy and needed gas. Margaret didn't want to stop, but what choice did she have? Well...to make a long story short, the driver tried to call for help behind her back, so what does she do? She stabs him with a syringe full of...I don't even know!"

"PCP," Drake told Bryan.

"Is that what she'd given Amy?" He shook his head. "That first night, Thursday, when I went to Amy's room to see for myself that she really was not in control of herself...I walked out thinking that I'd only seen someone hallucinate like that while they were on drugs. I went to college - I saw plenty of people on drugs. But since I'm not a doctor, I thought maybe a brain injury could cause all that. Then I saw how the driver started acting. It was so quick too. I swear he started losing it less than a minute later. I watched him wander off. Margaret just jumped in the driver's seat and drove away. I knew right then that I'd been had. All the way to Bakersfield, I sat in the back of that ambulance and tried to think of ways to get out of the mess without getting myself killed."

"Did she tell you where she was driving?" Mike asked.

"You still haven't told us about Amy waking up!" Steve was starting to lose his cool.

"She didn't say a word to me, and I was afraid to ask," Bryan told Mike before turning to Steve.

"Somewhere…" He paused and looked up at the ceiling, trying to think of something. "I think we were maybe an hour away from where the plane was - somewhere south of Fresno. Margaret stopped to make a phone call and grab something to eat. That's when Amy woke up. I'd stayed in the back with her while Margaret was gone. She opened her eyes, looked around, and panicked. Then she looked over at me and asked where she was. I told her the truth - that we were on our way to LA. She said, 'She got me, didn't she?' I ask her who she's talking about, and she says her mother."

Bryan looked away from Steve and at the wall behind Mike. "She recognized me. She told me she remembered seeing me in Glen's office a few times. She hadn't recognized me in the hospital room, but she did in the ambulance. She was fully coherent and capable of making decisions! I ended up telling her everything that had happened, she told me that everything Margaret had told me about Steve was a complete lie, and together we figured out that somehow Margaret had been drugging her so she could enact the power of attorney."

He turned back to Steve. "She kept begging me to call you. She insisted that us trying to drive off while Margaret was gone would just make her madder, but if I could get to a phone and call you, you'd come arrest her mother and everything would be okay. So I tried to get to a phone, but Margaret caught me and reminded me that if I tried anything, I'd end up like the ambulance driver. That wouldn't have helped Amy any, so I did what she said. It's arrogant of me, but I honestly thought I could outsmart her and get away."

"And that didn't happen, did it?" Drake commented. "What went wrong?"

"I underestimated her lunacy! I help her get Amy out of the ambulance when we got to Bakersfield, but then this oaf, who I guess was the pilot, attacks me from behind and puts me into a chokehold! Next thing I remember was waking up lying face down on the desert floor. The plane was gone, so was my wallet, and the ambulance was drained of all its gas. I ended up hitchhiking into LA!"

"Why did you come back here?" Mike asked.

"I had to do something to save that poor woman! I couldn't get that look she gave me out of my head. She just stared at me with those piercing blue eyes of hers and begged me to help her. I know people think lawyers don't have a conscious, but I couldn't live with myself if I'd have just let it go. Sure, I could have called, but I have a feeling no one would have taken me seriously."

Drake shrugged. "You do realize that coming back here meant us holding you on accessory to a kidnapping."

"Yeah, you told me, but I don't care! I had to do this in person. Margaret must have anticipated that because she sent goons up here to attack me!"

"Seriously?" Steve uttered.

"I know it sounds crazy, but how the hell else do you explain the fact that I have been run off the road, mugged, and beaten up since I got here? How many times does that happen to someone in this city?"

"Did you see the people who did those things?" Mike asked.

"Oh yeah. I could describe them to a T. Hard not to remember someone who's punching you repeatedly in the stomach! Every time I got close to the station, something would happen! I'm glad I finally ran into those beat cops. I couldn't take much more!"

"We'll have you talk to a sketch artist," Mike told him. "So do you have any idea where that plane was going once it left Bakersfield?"

Bryan shook his head. "Not a clue. Margaret never said a thing that even tipped me off. I've been thinking about it since Monday - wracking my brain over everything she said over those few days...nothing." He again looked at Steve. "I'm sorry."

"But you said that when you got to the hospital, she was asleep because she'd asked for a sedative? Right?" Steve had grabbed on to that little nugget of information Bryan had dropped earlier.

"Yeah. They said she was upset over something and wanted to sleep through the time you were gone."

Steve smiled and looked at Mike. "See? I told you she wouldn't do it!" He turned to Bryan. "No one believed me, but I knew she wouldn't kill herself!"

Bryan shook his head. "Yeah...she didn't seem suicidal in the ambulance…" He wasn't sure what to say.

Steve stood up and shook his hand. "Thank you. Honestly." He then walked happily out the door.

Mike, finding this reaction troubling, stood up and followed Steve out the door and into the hallway outside Homicide. "What's gotten into you, Buddy Boy?"

"What do you mean?" Steve asked, the smile still painted on his face.

"You've been all over the place today! You're happy, you're sad, you're…" Mike shook his head. "And what do you mean you're the only one who thought she wouldn't commit suicide? No one ever said they thought she was dead!"

"No, you all thought that was a suicide letter! But I knew she wouldn't do that. My girl wouldn't leave me that way - she loves me. She's out there, Mike, I know it." Steve patted Mike on the shoulder and walked into Homicide, leaving Mike out in the hall to once again wonder what was going to happen to his partner if everything blew up.

* * *

As the day dragged on, Steve's mood stabilized. He was riding high on the fact that Amy hadn't intended that letter to be a final goodbye. He was positive that she was out there trying to get ahold of him, and that it was only a matter of time before they were reunited.

Holloway had called Stilwell and inquired about Steve's demeanor. Stilwell was sure that "he's happy" was not the reaction the sergeant was hoping for, so he lied and said he'd been busy and hadn't even seen Steve. He couldn't seem to get a reading on Steve anyway. If he were in the man's shoes, he knew he wouldn't be walking around with a smile on his face, so why was Steve?

Stilwell was also on edge because it seemed like Norm kept staring at him. He tried to chalk it up to an overactive imagination and paranoia over the letter mess, but it seemed too real. Sure, their desks were close to each other, but every time Stilwell took a phone call or tried to get up, he felt the sergeant's stare burning into him. He did his best to act nonchalant, but he also decided that he would talk to Mike about Norm. Mike seemed to be warming up to him, so a general inquiry into Sergeant Haseejian didn't seem too nosy or out of line.

Around quitting time, Steve wandered into Mike's office to see if it was okay to go home. As he was about to ask, the phone rang. Mike answered it, and even though Steve couldn't hear the other side of the conversation, he could tell that it was not good news.

When Mike quietly set the receiver on the cradle, Steve apprehensively asked, "Something happen, Mike?"

Mike slowly looked up at Steve. "Close the door," was all he said.

Steve did as he was instructed and sat down afterward.

Mike knew beating around the bush would just anger Steve, so he came right out with it. "That was Bakersfield PD. They just got word that a plane matching the description of the one seen leaving Bakersfield crashed into a mountain 70 miles northeast of Phoenix. That's all the information they have now."

Steve got very quiet and looked down at the floor.

"There's a really good chance these two things aren't even related. The description of Margaret's plane wasn't the most complete, and no one has a real good description of the crashed plane yet because it's on a mountain. And why would they be north of Phoenix anyway?"

Steve looked up at Mike. "You don't know where they were going! They could have flown anywhere, even Phoenix!" He paused before adding, "Jasmine's in Phoenix."

Mike sighed. "You can't tell me that you actually believe Amy got her mother to fly to Phoenix to see Jasmine? Margaret isn't going to go somewhere we could easily place her or Amy."

"And maybe they weren't headed to Phoenix! Maybe they were headed to Mexico!" Steve shouted.

"By way of Arizona? They could have just flown south from Bakersfield."

"So now you're a pilot?! You can get to Mexico hundreds of different ways! You don't just have to fly south until you cross the border!"

"You don't even know this is the same plane! Stop being so presumptuous!"

"How could it not be! She was on a plane that left Bakersfield, and why not go to Mexico? What a better place to hide a kidnapping! We'll never see her again! She'll probably die all alone in the desert wondering why I never found her!"

Mike had had enough of the mood swings. As much as he wanted Steve reinstated, he was beginning to wonder if the decision to let him come back to work was the right one. "Stop! Just stop this! We have no facts in this case! None! All we have is speculation, and if you can't keep it together then I'm sending you home and telling you not to come back!"

Steve stared angrily at Mike. "I'm holding it together just fine," he growled. "I'm the only one not looking for a dead body and a killer."

"Yet you assume that was her plane." Mike shook his head. "Now you're being hypocritical. Go home."

"What?" Steve snapped.

"Go home and calm down! I don't want you back in this office until you can handle being here."

Steve opened his mouth to protest, but Mike cut him off.

"And that's an order!"

* * *

Around six that evening, Mark walked up to his car and pulled his keys out of his pocket. Sticking the key in the lock, he turned it and opened the driver's side door. He threw his jacket onto the passenger's seat and climbed in closing the door behind him.

"Took you long enough," a voice said from the back seat. Mark nearly jumped through the roof of the convertible. He snapped his head around and saw Holloway laying on the back seat.

"This car really isn't big enough to lay down comfortably in. Can't you afford anything bigger?" he complained.

Mark glared at his intruder. "How the hell did you get in my car?" he growled. "I should have you arrested for breaking and entering!"

"Oh, stop being so dramatic! And turn around. Don't look like you're talking to anyone. I have a feeling prying eyes are everywhere these days."

Mark found that statement odd, especially after he'd been feeling watched by Haseejian all afternoon. "What do you want?"

"Rumor has it that a plane crashed in Arizona and it might just be related to the Johnson disappearance."

Mark rolled his eyes. "How many spies do you have?"

"Does Keller know?" Holloway asked, ignoring Mark's question.

Mark stared straight ahead. "I think so. He stormed out of Lieutenant Stone's office a minute before Stone came out and told us about the crash."

"Stormed out, huh? Guess he didn't take the news well." Holloway snickered. "So was he despondent like Amy Johnson is dead, or was he more mad…"

Mark interrupted. "What the hell does it matter to you anyway?! So the guy dated someone involved in a case. You'll never prove he told her anything or that their relationship hindered the case in any way because it's your word versus theirs and they're not gonna talk. He's obviously grieving, so why don't you just charge him with breaking the rules, suspend him for a few days, and leave him alone?!" He couldn't believe he'd just said what he did...and meant it.

"Start the car and leave the garage," Holloway told him.

Mark angrily sighed but started his car. He drove out of the underground garage and away from the station before Holloway spoke again.

"My motivations for why I'm after Keller are none of your business, but let me put something into perspective for you. Have you ever seen a cop on the edge, regardless of what put him there?"

"No," was all Mark muttered.

Holloway finally sat up. "They're dangerous - more dangerous than the criminals. They've stopped caring about their lives and the lives of everyone around them. They live minute to minute doing stupid and risky things. Nothing stops them until they've accomplished whatever it is their anguished brains want done. And you know who often ends up suffering for it? Anyone but them. They're no better than a drunk driver who kills someone and walks away unscathed. Do you want to be partnered with someone like that? Do you want a man who doesn't care if he lives or dies to be your protection? You do know that you might end up paired with Keller someday. How far is your sympathy going to get you when you're fighting for your life because Keller got you shot? Hmm?"

Holloway turned his head and looked out the side window. "Pull over here," he told his driver.

Mark pulled off the road and parked the car against the curb. Holloway opened the door and exited. Before walking off, he stuck his head in the open passenger's side window. "Just think about that." He then walked away.

Mark sat in his car, the engine running, for several minutes. He played out hypothetical scenarios in his head, all of which turned out deadly. It caused him to shiver. He didn't want to be the victim of Steve Keller's grief, and he didn't want anyone else to be either.


	12. Chapter 12

_**Tuesday, May 7, 1974 - Evening** _

Steve angrily paced around his apartment. _How dare Mike question my ability to handle things! I'm handling things better than most people would in my shoes. Why is Mike questioning it now? I can't be the only one who knows how deranged Margaret is and that she would try to pull something like flying Amy to Mexico by way of Arizona. Why did that thought suddenly make me unstable?_

He walked to his kitchen and got out a glass and bottles of rum and Coke. Setting them on the counter, he stood and stared at them trying to decide if he should drown his rage or not. He knew he shouldn't, but the anger was strangling him. If he didn't take care of it, he wouldn't be able to go back to work. He turned around and kicked one of his kitchen table chairs and wandered back into the living room.

As he passed by the TV, he switched it on and found a black and white movie playing. Figuring a movie would be a good way to get lost for a while, he sat down and watched, though seconds later he regretted choosing to watch this particular film. The late movie was _Sunset Boulevard_ , and as much as he wanted to turn it off, he couldn't turn away. He sat and watched the whole movie wondering if Amy was somewhere living through a similar hell as Joe Gillis. He watched, hoping that by some miracle the ending would change. Joe still ended up face down in the pool - his price for trying to leave a desperate woman.

Once the movie was done, Steve stood up, switched off the television, and headed into his bedroom. If he didn't try to sleep now, he'd kill the bad thoughts the movie gave him with alcohol instead. As he changed out of his work clothes, he eyed the suitcase of Amy's that was still sitting in the corner of his bedroom. After throwing on some lounging pants, he wandered over to the suitcase and stood over it, looking at its haphazardly strewn contents. He chuckled, finding it funny that Amy didn't seem to care about wrinkles or anything, seeing as how she left her clothes wadded up in the bag. He'd never met a woman who didn't care about her clothes any more than that. Yet, it was those little things - things that she didn't share with any woman he'd known - that made him love her.

He closed his eyes and fought back tears. He would have given anything to have her appear at his door at that moment. All he wanted was to hold her and tell her he loved her. The more he learned about Margaret Johnson and how she not only seemed to value attention from friends and strangers more than from her daughter, but how she also didn't appear to have any motherly instincts, the more he felt the need to tell Amy that yes, someone did love her. He wanted her to know that whatever her family had put her through in the past didn't matter because she had him. He knew he was speculating about Amy's life and relationships, but he couldn't shake the feeling that if she knew her mother didn't even speak of her to people, she'd feel unloved. All he could picture was Amy suffering through a crippling depression and accomplishing what she'd mentioned in the letter. The thought killed him.

"No! You can't think that way!" he told himself out loud. "She's stronger than that! She knows you love her...she does. And she knows her mom is crazy; she won't just walk away - she'll sneak out. She just can't yet, that's all. That's all it is. They're not in Arizona...that wasn't her plane. She's out there. She's out there…"

He trailed off, not wholeheartedly believing what he was saying. "Where are you, Amy?!" he exclaimed loudly. "Where are you…"

* * *

Jasmine Duncan was a very sneaky girl. She was also a very determined child, not liking to be denied from getting what she wanted. What she wanted more than anything that night was to get out of the house. Beatrice, upon seeing the new clothes and toys Jeannie had bought for Jasmine, took them all and hid them somewhere, telling the girl that she didn't deserve nice things or gifts from her "fake" family. She also denied her dinner, giving her bread and water to eat instead. Jasmine spent the rest of the night in her room, drawing angry pictures and trying to think of a plan to get out of the house and back to San Francisco.

She eventually fell asleep, waking up at one in the morning. Assuming that everyone was asleep, she decided now would be a good time to try and escape. She got up and grabbed her suitcase, which was hidden under the bed. Upon opening it, she started digging around for a flashlight. She found it and turned it on. It shone on the various contents of the suitcase which included Steve's business card. She grabbed it and turned it over to the back where he had written his home number.

Jasmine started thinking about how Jeannie had taught her to make collect calls, and how she'd told Steve that she would call if she needed to talk. Right now, she needed to hear a familiar voice more than anything, so she shoved the suitcase back under the bed and stood up. She walked to the door and slowly opened it, not making a sound. Hearing and seeing nothing in the hall, she snuck out of the bedroom, closed the door behind her, and silently tiptoed away.

She managed to make it down the hall and stairs to the first floor without raising suspicion. Earlier in the week, she'd scouted out where all the phones were located in the house and decided that her best bet was the phone in the kitchen. It hung on the wall next to the pantry and had a long enough cord to allow Jasmine to hide in the pantry if need be. Seeing no lights on and hearing nothing, she headed to the kitchen.

Making it through the swinging kitchen door, she shone her light around the room until she saw the phone. Just as she was about to walk over to it, the back door opened and Lawrence Lynch stumbled in. Jasmine gasped and raised the light to the man's face. He shielded his eyes from the brightness, and Jasmine put her flashlight down. However, she did not move; she froze in place, afraid that if she ran, she'd get in trouble.

Lawrence felt the wall for the lightswitch. When he finally found it, he flipped it on and lit up the room. He looked over and saw Jasmine, standing frozen in her pajamas, staring at him like a deer in headlights.

"Well, hi there, Baby Doll," he slurred. "Did you wake up to welcome your daddy home?" He grinned salaciously.

"You're not my daddy!" she declared angrily.

Lawrence knelt down to her. She scrunched up her nose as he got closer. He smelled like he had been bathing in sweaty alcohol and bad cologne. It was a smell Jasmine was not completely unfamiliar with as she'd smelled it around her mother once in a great while, but it was never as putrid.

"You should have come out with me, Baby Doll! We could have had quite a time! Hell, you would have been the hit of the party! Pretty girls are always the hit of the party!"

Jasmine started shaking both from anger and fear.

"Why don't you give me a hug? Daddy needs some lovin'!" He puckered his lips and leaned into Jasmine.

As he almost got her in his clutches, she let out an ear-piercing scream. Lawrence lost his balance and fell backward. Jasmine started running out of the kitchen, but her escape was blocked by an angry Beatrice.

"What the hell is going on in here?" she shouted.

Jasmine didn't say anything; she simply started backing away from the woman.

"What are you doing down here?! Am I going to have to lock you in your room at night?" she hollered at Jasmine. She then turned her attention to her husband, who was struggling to stand up.

"And just what the hell are you up to anyway? You realize she's only six!"

Jasmine kept backing away toward the pantry as Lawrence attempted to stay on his feet. As Beatrice got closer to him, Jasmine got further away until she bumped into the pantry door. She immediately turned around and bolted through it, making sure it was closed behind her. The room was dark, so she turned on her flashlight and looked for a place to hide. She wasn't sure what would happen in the next few minutes, but she didn't want to find out.

Finding a place inside a partially-empty cabinet, she climbed in, shut the door, and brought her knees to her chest. She stayed curled up in that position for what seemed like hours. While she hid, Beatrice and Lawrence had an altercation that could have started a new world war. She accused him of being a worthless drunk and a pedophile. He accused her of being a cold prude and the reason he needed to drink and look for affections elsewhere. Several derogatory names were exchanged as well as a few well-placed punches and slaps.

Jasmine had been through this routine before with her own parents, but those episodes had never been as long and drawn out or as contentious. She also had Amy to turn to afterward. Now she was all alone in a cabinet, crying into her knees.

Silence overtook the pantry. Lawrence and Beatrice appeared to have left the kitchen, so Jasmine slowly exited the cabinet and walked to the pantry door. She put her ear up to the door and heard nothing, so she opened it and shone her light around the now empty kitchen.

Jasmine scooted over to the small kitchen table in the corner and grabbed a chair. She dragged it over to the phone, climbed up on it, and grabbed the receiver off the base. After dialing zero, she jumped off the chair and ran back into the pantry where she sat hidden behind a shelf full of jars. Once the operator answered, she told the woman just what she had rehearsed with Jeannie and then waited for the call to connect.

* * *

The phone next to Steve's bed rang. The first ring pulled him out of unconsciousness. The second ring forced him to open his eyes. He found that he'd fallen asleep hugging a pillow, and he remembered that he'd more or less cried himself to sleep. Sitting up, though not thinking completely clearly, he answered the phone on the fourth ring.

The operator informed him that he had a collect call from an unknown party in Arizona and asked if he'd accept the charges. He almost denied the call, but then his sleep-riddled brain started thinking again. Arizona...the plane crash...what if it was Amy? His heart started beating faster in anticipation.

"Daddy?" a tiny voice on the other end asked.

"Jasmine? Is that you?" Steve asked back. He didn't know anyone else in Arizona who would call him Daddy, but the voice sounded too weak to be Jasmine's.

The minute she heard his voice, Jasmine started crying.

Steve's heart rate increased. "Jasmine, Baby, what's wrong?" he asked, apprehension evident in his voice.

"I...I…" She was breathing so hard that she couldn't spit out the words.

"Are you hurt? Are you sick?"

"No," she cried. "Scared."

"Princess, calm down. Take a few deep breaths for me, okay?" He heard her doing as he asked until she'd calmed down enough to speak coherently.

"Good girl. Now what are you scared of? What's going on?" Steve was trying to stay as calm as he could, but he had a bad feeling about this.

"They're fighting really loud. And he tried to kiss me!"

"He did what?! Who are you talking about?"

"Aunt Bea's husband. He smelled like my mom when she'd stay out late with Norman, and he tried to kiss me. I screamed at him."

"Good for you. Why did he try to kiss you?"

"He's always trying to kiss me and hug me. He calls me Baby Doll and touches my face a lot. I don't like it, Daddy." Her crying had slowed, but Steve could still hear it in her voice.

He suddenly felt sick to his stomach. He couldn't tell from what she'd said, but he immediately assumed the worst, which was not Lawrence being a loving uncle. "Have you told your aunt?"

"She just makes me stay in my prison cell. She doesn't like me being in the way."

"Your prison cell?"

"That's what Aunt Jeannie called it. I don't think she wanted me to hear that, but I did. She was mad because I didn't have any blankets on my bed or any pictures on the walls. She helped me hang some of my drawings on the wall. She said it made the room look happier."

"Jeannie was there? She came to see you?"

"Yeah, today. I tried to get her to take me home with her, but she couldn't. Daddy, I don't want to stay here anymore. Can you come get me? I'll be good, I promise! I won't be sassy or in the way! Please, Daddy!"

Steve put his face in his left hand. This whole conversation was already killing him. "Princess, you know that's not why you're there. We didn't send you away because you were bad."

"Then come get me. Please! They don't like me here!"

"Baby, I can't. You have to stay there until the judge says you can come back with us."

"Can't you tell the judge that I can come back? I can't…" She started crying too hard to talk again.

Steve had no idea how to make her understand the situation - he didn't fully understand it himself - so instead of trying to explain an adult situation to a child, he decided to try and calm her down and get her to tell him everything that had been happening so that he could assess the situation better.

After a few minutes of trying to ease her crying, he finally asked her to tell him about her week. She explained to him that even though Beatrice was nice when they were in San Francisco, she quickly turned into Cinderella's stepmother.

"This other little girl was here when I got here. I guess she's Aunt Bea's granddaughter. Everyone was all nice to me at first, but then I went off to play in my new bedroom with this girl."

Steve picked up on the disdain in her voice. "You didn't like her?"

"She's crazy! She kept making me do things for her! 'Go get me a Pepsi! Brush my hair! Give me all your crayons!' I got in trouble for getting into the fridge without asking. I told them why, but they said I was lying. But that wasn't the baddest part!"

"What happened?"

"She wrote on the walls with a Sharpie! Then she told them I did it!"

"They believed her, didn't they?" Steve asked sadly.

"Yes! I didn't do it, Daddy!"

"I believe you, Princess. What did they do then?"

"Fed me broth for dinner and made me stay in my room. Aunt Bea told me I had to ask to go anywhere in the house. So I ask, but no one lets me go anywhere. I just hafta stay in my room. My new room."

"New room? You had two rooms?"

"I had the one that Princess Lisa wrote on, but they took that one away. Can you believe that she made me call her Princess?! I'm the princess!"

Steve chuckled. At least she still had her priorities. "Yes you are. You're my princess. Why did they take your room away though? Just because this girl wrote on the wall?"

"Well…not just that…"

"What did you do?" Steve asked suspiciously.

"Nothing really…"

"Jasmine…" Steve said, adopting a fatherly tone.

"I may have been a little mad and broke the room."

"Broke the room? What do you mean by broke the room? What did you break?"

Jasmine took a deep breath. "I teared the ugly paintings and throwed the lamps on the floor. I broke the drawers too."

Steve's jaw dropped. He had no idea this little girl was capable of that kind of destruction...or that kind of anger. "You were so mad you broke things?"

"I hate them! I hate my old family! This is all their fault! They're all mean to me! I HATE THEM!" At this point she was screaming. "They won't let me go home!"

Steve was floored with the degree of anger she held onto. When Amy initially told him that Jasmine wouldn't behave for anyone else, he thought she was exaggerating. Now he wondered if she didn't underestimate Jasmine's turmoil. Just how abused had this child been in her short time on Earth? Deep down he didn't blame her for being angry at the world, but it worried him at the same time. All he wanted to do was the same thing he wanted to do to her mother - give them a hug and tell them that everything was going to be good from then on.

After he'd calmed her down yet again, he asked her how she was able to get to a phone.

"I sneaked out when everyone was sleeping. I used to do that at my old house."

After reading her journal, he didn't doubt that one bit.

"There's a phone in the kitchen, and people don't hang out there a lot. There's a little room next to the kitchen where I can hide and call you."

"You have to hide to call me?"

"Mmm hmm. They won't let me talk to anyone in San Francisco. Aunt Bea keeps telling me you're not my family anymore. That's not true, is it? You and Amy are still my mommy and daddy...right?"

Steve could tell from her change in tone that the thought of losing him and Amy was scaring the hell out of Jasmine. "Princess…" His voice started breaking up. "Your mommy and I love you very much, and we always will. No matter what anyone there says...you will always be our little girl."

Jasmine smiled. "I love you too, Daddy." She paused before asking, "Is Mommy still in the hospital?"

Steve had hoped she wouldn't bring that up. He took a deep breath before answering. "She is. I'll tell her you called though. She wants to come home soon."

"Is Prince Stefan keeping her company?"

After they'd found out that Amy was gone, Steve went into the room and noticed that all her possessions, including the little bear Jasmine gave her, were gone. "He is," Steve told his daughter, hoping he was right.

"Aunt Jeannie bought me a teddy bear, but Aunt Bea took it away from me. She hided him somewhere with all the clothes Aunt Jeannie bought me."

Steve was at a loss for words. So far this woman had put her in a prison-like room and hidden her clothes. He didn't want to imagine what else she'd done, because it would just make him jump in his car and drive to Arizona.

"Why did she hide your clothes? And why did Jeannie have to buy you new ones?"

"She said that three shirts and two pairs of pants weren't enough, so she bought me more. But then Harriet, who is not like Amy _at all_ , saw them and got all mad. She tried to take them away, so I got mad and hit her. Then she called me a demon child who doesn't deserve nice things. Aunt Bea took all my stuff away."

Steve was about to ask her why she only had three shirts and two pairs of pants and why this Harriet woman dared call her a demon, but he knew the answer would just make him angrier than he already was, so he let it go.

"You uh...I suppose you and that detective mind of yours will find where she hid your stuff, right?" he asked, running his hand through his hair in total frustration.

"I'll find it. My old mom tried to hide stuff from me all the time. I always found it. Isn't that what you do, Daddy? Find stuff?"

Steve smiled. Even in the midst of her personal hell, Jasmine still managed to have a positive attitude. "Kind of."

Jasmine yawned.

Steve looked over at the clock on his nightstand. "I think it's about time someone went back to bed."

"No!" she gasped. "No, I don't wanna go back up there. I wanna stay here with you!"

"Jasmine, you can't stay up all night. You can always try to call me tomorrow night." Normally he wouldn't have given her such advice, but under the circumstances - and knowing how sneaky she really was - he knew she'd pull it off without trouble. "Just don't try when people are awake."

"Daddy, can you tell me a story or sing me a song? Mommy always did that when I didn't wanna sleep because I was scared."

Steve chuckled. "Well, I don't think you want me to sing, but I can tell you a story. Only if you promise to go back to bed afterward."

Jasmine yawned again. "Okay. Tell me another Princess Amelia story."

Steve thought for a moment. The last story had come so easily as it was really an allegory directed at Amy and her irrational fears. He was also certain that a happy ending would come out of that tale. He wasn't sure about that anymore, but he needed not convey that fear to an already fearful child.

Instead, he came up with another based-on-a-true-story tale of Amelia being kidnapped by an ugly, jealous princess who wanted Amelia's beauty. Prince Stefan set out on a quest through the woods to find his lost love, running into several bad guys along the way. Defeating them all handily, Stefan found Amelia unharmed and took her back to their castle to live happily ever after.

"I knew Prince Stefan would save Princess Amelia. He always does. Tell me another," Jasmine said through a long yawn.

"Not tonight. You need to get to sleep."

Jasmine paused. "Can I call you tomorrow?"

"Of course you can! Just don't get in trouble, okay?"

"I won't. Daddy?"

"What, Princess?"

"I love you and Mommy even if you can't come get me."

At that, she hung up, leaving Steve no chance to respond. He wasn't sure how he would have anyway with the lump in his throat and the tears that were stinging his eyes. Between her last comment and her belief that Prince Stefan always saved Princess Amelia, he was feeling like a giant failure. These two girls were looking to him to save them from the hell they were both in - and he wasn't able to help either one of them. The law was against him with Jasmine and fate was with Amy. He was letting two of the most important people in his life down, and there didn't seem to be a damn thing he could do about it.

Angry, heartbroken, and regretful, Steve slammed the receiver down, got out of bed, and threw on some clothes. Grabbing his car keys, he stormed out of his apartment and went for a very long - and very fast - drive around San Francisco.


	13. Chapter 13

_**Wednesday, May 8, 1974** _

Mike came in expecting to be the first man in the office. To his surprise, he saw his partner sitting at his desk talking to someone on the phone. He stepped part way into his office, took off his coat and hat, and then stepped back out to make some coffee, all the while trying to listen in on Steve's conversation.

After a few exchanges, Mike determined that Steve was talking to a lawyer, but he couldn't figure out why. All Steve seemed to ask was if he had any legal rights or ground to stand on, and what could legally be done about "this mess".  _At least he's thinking on the right side of the law_ , Mike thought, taking it as a step in the right direction.

The call took several more minutes, so Mike retreated into his office to go over some paperwork. Once Steve was off the phone, Mike casually wandered out, pretending to need more coffee.

"You're here early. Have a change of heart from yesterday?" he asked.

Steve sat at his desk with his head in his hands, staring at the wall in front of him. "You know what your daughter did yesterday?" he finally asked.

Mike shrugged. "No, but I know what she'll be doing in a few hours - getting off a bus. Why?"

"Well...before she got on that bus, she went and made a very sad child's day a little brighter." Steve looked over at Mike and smiled. "She went and saw Jasmine. Took her out shopping, bought her lunch...taught her how to call collect."

Mike smiled a proud dad smile. "She never ceases to amaze me." He looked at Steve. "So then why do you look so terrible?"

Steve let out a breath. "She made that collect call last night - around 1:30."

"Ooo...middle of the night phone calls are rarely good. What happened?"

Steve looked at Mike with a certain desperation in his eyes. "It's like a house of horrors, Mike. Beatrice Lynch has her in a room that your daughter described as a prison cell. Regardless of what it looks like, it sure sounds like she's right, because Jasmine says she's not allowed anywhere else in the house without permission, which is rarely granted. She had to sneak around with a flashlight last night just to call me because they denied her phone privileges! The woman took most of her clothes away and hid them. The so-called nanny thinks she's possessed. Beatrice's husband hits on her."

Mike's face dropped. "Hits on her? You mean he actually hits her with his fists...or…" He couldn't say it.

Steve shook his head. "Living with a pedophile is better than an unmarried woman in the hospital because he's family," he said sarcastically.

"That poor kid," Mike muttered, shaking his head.

"She called me while she was hiding from the Lynches because they were having a fight that she says was worse than all the fights the Duncans ever had."

The two men said nothing for a moment. Steve stared off at the wall while Mike watched him, weary of what he was thinking.

"What's on your mind, Steve?" Mike finally asked, apprehensive of the silence and the growing look of disdain on Steve's face.

"I have to get her out of there," was all he said.

"How do you propose to do that? If she was legally up for adoption, you might have a chance, but that's not the impression I got," Mike told him.

"That's why I called a lawyer. I told him the whole story and what Jasmine told me. He said he'd look into it." Steve paused. "I don't care if it costs me everything I have; I'm getting that girl back to where she belongs."

Mike looked at Steve for a while and then shook his head and chuckled.

Steve sighed. "I know...you think I've lost it…"

"No, that's not it at all," Mike interrupted. "This just reminds me of something from the past, that's all." He turned and sauntered back into his office.

Steve jumped up and followed him. "You're not just gonna leave it at that, are you? There's a story here, and you're gonna tell me...especially if you did something similar!"

"Why, so you can justify your actions?" Mike grinned as he sat down behind his desk.

"No! I want to know I'm on the right track. I mean, if Mike Stone did it and got away with it, then I'll have no problem, right?" Steve grinned back as he sat down.

"Flattery will get you nowhere, Buddy Boy," Mike informed Steve, chuckling while he said it. He then sat back in his chair.

"It was...1950...no, 51. I was just a beat cop in those days, sometimes walking, sometimes riding, but taking care of the day to day problems of the city. One day, the captain in Narcotics approached my partner and me and asked if we'd assist in a major operation they were starting. A big influx of heroin was infiltrating the city, and the department was poised to take down the kingpin. Like everything, the initial action started right out there on the street with the small time hustlers and junkies.

"One day, we were part of a sting, arresting buyers and small-time dealers in an effort to get someone to crack about the overall operation. We'd arrested several people that day, but few of them gave us much to go on. Then we met Judith Harlan."

Mike shook his head as the memories came flooding back.

"I take it this isn't a story with a happy ending?" Steve asked.

Mike shrugged. "A little of both. Judith Harlan was heavy into heroin, opiates, alcohol...you name it, she was on it. Victim of an abusive childhood, mental problems...you know the kind. Anyway, over the course of the day, I sat and watched this woman slowly walk by several times, always looking around and pretending to be waiting for a bus, but I knew what she was doing.

"The worst part was that she always had this little boy with her. It made me sick thinking that someone would drag their child into something like that! It's one thing to ruin your own life, but forcing your child into that life? I wanted to take that poor child away from her; he obviously wasn't her top priority."

Steve smirked. "Since you're telling me this story now, I'm assuming that you somehow got that accomplished."

"So that's why you're so good at your job! I knew you were more than just a pretty face," Mike said in an attempt to lighten Steve's mood.

Steve grinned. "I am wicked perceptive. So what happened? You guys get her on child endangerment?"

Mike paused, trying to decide how to phrase his response. "We arrested her initially for buying, but what got her into the most trouble was what she used for payment."

Steve failed to see how that connected with the story about the little boy. Then it clicked.

"She didn't…"

Mike simply nodded.

"She...she tried to use her son as payment for drugs?!"

"She wasn't very regretful of it either. All she wanted was a fix. She agreed to give up anyone and everyone if we would just get her something 'for the pain' as she put it."

Mike shook his head. "That poor boy...he was only two at the time and scared to death. He had no idea what was going on. I'll never forget the look of relief he had in his eyes when we took him away from his mother. Even at two, he seemed to understand he was living in a miserable situation."

Mike soon found himself lost in the memory, and Steve got lost in his own thoughts as well. He knew he hadn't heard the whole story, but the similarities between it and Jasmine's situation were already apparent. Two children, the victims of terrible parenting, were both somehow saved by a couple of bleeding heart cops.

"So what happened?" Steve asked eagerly, hoping the tale had a happy ending.

Mike smiled. "Timothy Harlan. That's his name...he goes by Tim now. I took a real liking to that kid and he to me. I was a complete stranger to him, but he clung to me like he'd known me all his life."

Steve grinned knowingly; Jasmine had done the same thing with him.

"I took over watching him at the station until the child welfare people could come. I sort of felt responsible for him...I don't really know why. When they finally did arrive, he refused to let go of my leg. For only being two, that kid put up quite a fight! Strong little guy! He only let go when I promised I'd come visit him."

"Which of course you did."

Mike nodded. "Helen and I both did. He took to her as well." He paused. "You know we almost adopted him?"

Steve gave him a surprised look. "Really? Why didn't you?"

"Financially it wasn't going to work, but I did everything in my power to find him a good home. He ended up with a very nice, loving couple. So yes, there was a happy ending."

"So he's what...about twenty-five now? What happened to him?"

"His folks eventually moved to LA, but we've kept in touch for years. He even tried to get on the force here, but he hurt his knee before graduation and never finished. I haven't heard from him since. I think he took it pretty hard."

Steve shook his head. "I never would have guessed that about you."

"Guessed what?"

"That you took a little boy under your wing like that. Next thing I know, I'll be out of a job as your protégé." He laughed.

"You keep up that attitude and you will," Mike said, laughing as well.

The two sat in silence for a moment. "So do you think I can get that same happy ending for Jasmine?" Steve finally asked, his emotions showing through his voice.

"Well, protégé...if you're anything like me you can."

Steve smiled. He was grateful for Mike and his ability to see things in a brighter light when he was unable.

* * *

Later that afternoon, Lenny Murchison walked into Homicide and to Mike's office. Steve, finding it odd that he was there, started listening in as Lenny stood in Mike's doorway.

"Did you know that she's a fugitive?" he asked the lieutenant.

Mike looked up over the top of his glasses as he sat at his desk. "Well, yeah...that's pretty obvious, Lenny."

Lenny shook his head. "I don't mean now. I mean from 1943."

Mike put down what he was reading. "Do tell."

Lenny had a seat in front of Mike's desk. Steve, curious if this was about Margaret, stood up and tried casually wandering into Mike's office.

"Curiosity got the best of you, didn't it?" Mike asked as he walked in.

"What are you talking about? I just wanted to ask you something," he said innocently. Then he pretended to just notice Lenny was in the room. "Oh, hi, Lenny. What brings you here?"

"You're about as subtle as an earthquake," Mike told Steve, shaking his head. "Close the door."

He turned his attention back to the psychiatrist. "You're going to have to explain this to me."

"I reached out to a few colleagues who reached out to others. Eventually I talked to someone at the hospital where Margaret stayed - a doctor who was an intern there at the time. He couldn't tell me everything, but what he did say was interesting."

"The hospital in Nebraska?" Steve asked, sitting down on the corner of Mike's desk.

Lenny nodded. "Technically, she's still a patient. She ran away from the facility in 1943 and they never found her. I think that's why the doctor I spoke with was willing to reveal more than he should have; he wants her back."

Steve looked disgusted. "Why?"

"She was a fascinating case."

"That's one way to put it," Mike commented. "So what did you find out? Anything helpful?"

"Her start in life was rough. Both her parents suffered from personality disorders, although only her mother was treated. From what Doctor Melton - he's the psychiatrist I spoke to - told me, Leon Nielsen was a brute and a bully. He beat his wife, frequently got into fistfights...he was a slick charmer who was always trying to scheme people out of their money. He was also a serial cheater. If he had been my patient, I would have diagnosed him with Antisocial Personality Disorder."

"And that would be…?" Mike prompted.

"Individuals with that are often lawbreakers. They have little regard for social norms and society's expectations of how people should act. They also have a distinct lack of remorse for any of their actions. Oftentimes they are referred to as sociopaths. They have trouble keeping jobs because they often feel like the job is beneath them. They're also combative with co-workers and don't take responsibility seriously."

"Sounds like half the guys we arrest. What about Mrs. Nielsen?"

"When Margaret was thirteen, Clara Nielsen was institutionalized - what for I'm not a hundred percent sure. The doctors at the time couldn't agree on a diagnosis. Apparently though the woman was highly unstable and had been her entire life. Her husband's abuse exacerbated her condition. What the doctors observed was that she was very dependent on Leon, almost as if he had made her that way. She wouldn't - or couldn't - do anything on her own. She took his abuse and abandonment because the alternative, her being alone with two children and no source of income, was too frightening. However, all the abuse eventually affected her mind, and she started becoming paranoid that people were out to get her and her children. This included Leon. The reason she ended up in the institution was because she burned her house down and tried to kill her whole family. She did it because she figured he was going to kill them, so she decided to do it first."

"Oh man…" was all Steve could manage to say.

"Margaret didn't take Clara's hospitalization well as she was apparently very close to her mother. Doctor Melton told me that shortly after her mother was admitted, he was talking to Margaret and she told him she wished that everyone had died, especially her father. From what he could remember, she took to acting out in her mother's absence. Several times she tried breaking the woman out of the hospital. She slit her wrists for attention or if someone upset her. If she wasn't doing that, she was getting into fights. When someone would try to abandon her like she perceived her mother had done, she'd attempt suicide to make them stay. Or, she'd turn on them and attempt to make their lives miserable. It's classic behavior for someone who's Borderline."

"Layman's terms, Lenny," Mike muttered.

"Borderline Personality Disorder. People who are Borderline fear being abandoned. The fear is so great that they will do just about anything to avoid it."

"Like kidnapping," Steve scoffed.

Lenny looked over at him. "Yes, like kidnapping. They're very emotionally unstable and frequently attempt or threaten suicide. They can also dissociate themselves from reality and do so often."

"Lenny…" Mike said, annoyed at the man's endless use of jargon.

"It's like leaving reality for a while," Steve jumped in and explained. "Many people use it as a coping mechanism to get through stressful times or endless boredom. Daydreaming is a form of dissociation. Most of us do it to some degree, but others have a hard time coming back to reality. They live in their own fantasy."

Mike smirked. "Thank you very much, Doctor Keller." He chuckled. "College boy."

Steve smirked back. "That would explain what that costume guy told us." He looked at Lenny. "Would it be unheard of for someone like Margaret to take on a persona of a famous actress even though she's nowhere near famous?"

Lenny nodded. "Absolutely. Doctor Melton told me that she'd been diagnosed as not only Borderline, but also slightly Histrionic and Narcissistic, so her need to be famous would align perfectly."

Before Mike could pipe up about what Histrionic and Narcissistic meant, Steve jumped in. "Histrionic people have to be the center of attention, and Narcissistic ones think very highly of themselves."

"So like actors," Mike quipped.

Lenny and Steve both laughed knowingly.

"So how did Margaret end up in the institution?" Steve inquired.

"In 1943, Clara hanged herself in her room. Margaret took this as the ultimate abandonment and lashed out at her mother's funeral. Leon had her committed as well. Unfortunately, her stay was short-lived. After only being there a month, she escaped. She kidnapped her sister from her grandmother's house - where she'd been staying ever since her mother's committal - and disappeared. No one ever found her."

"So Kaye was living with this grandmother...Clara's mother?" Mike asked.

"Yes. Margaret distrusted her grandmother immensely. She felt that the woman did little to protect her daughter from Leon. You know, it's also very common for Borderline's to go from idealization of people to devaluing them all in one instance," Lenny added at random.

Mike just looked at Lenny. He then looked at Steve for clarification.

Steve shrugged. "I think that means she'd idolize someone until they did her wrong just once, then she'd hate them…" He trailed off as he finished his sentence.

Lenny looked over at him. "What are you thinking, Steve?"

"I wonder if that's the case with Amy," he said sadly. "For years, at least the way Amy made it sound, Margaret tried turning her into a younger version of herself. Then Amy goes off and moves to San Francisco against her wishes."

Lenny nodded. "That would make perfect sense."

"So…" Steve swallowed hard. "So, what would a person like that do to a person they suddenly devalued? Would they…"

Lenny knew Steve was looking for him to assure him that Amy was in no danger, and he felt bad that he couldn't give him that. "There's really no telling, Steve. Everyone is different. There was nothing in her medical records to indicate that she was violent, but there really wasn't much there in the first place. She wasn't in the hospital for very long, and while she was there, she didn't show any violent tendencies."

"But…" Steve prompted. "There's a but in there."

Lenny sighed. "But...her father was a violent man, and she grew up watching him abuse her mother. She also showed signs of his antisocial behavior." Lenny looked down at his lap knowing full well that that was the worst thing Steve could hear at that moment.

Steve stood up and started pacing around the office as he ran his fingers through his hair.

Mike decided the direction of the conversation needed a change. "So back up a little. Clara hangs herself and Leon has Margaret committed. Margaret escapes...then what?"

"Leon Nielsen died in a bank robbery gone wrong in Omaha while Margaret was in the hospital. Two days after Margaret kidnaps her sister, the grandmother dies of a heart attack."

"Technically they were orphans then," Mike added.

"But there are no records of any foster homes, adoptions...nothing. That is until 1948."

"What happened then?" Steve asked, coming back into the conversation.

"Bill did some digging, and the earliest record of Margaret Nielsen existing after 1943 was her marriage license to Glen Johnson. It was taken out in Los Angeles County on April 2nd, 1948. Margaret was twenty at the time. What she did in those missing five years is anyone's guess."

"There's no record of her going to school, or renting property…?"

Lenny shook his head. "Bill found nothing."

Mike looked over at Steve who seemed to be thinking hard about something. He was curious, but chose to wait on asking him. He turned back to Lenny. "What about Kaye? How old would she have been in 1943?"

"She's six years younger than Margaret," Steve said, breaking from his thinking momentarily. "Amy said it was the same as the age difference between her and Karen." He then went back to whatever he was figuring out.

"Okay, so Margaret was what, fifteen when she ran away. That would have made Kaye only nine. She had to have gone to school somewhere!" Mike stood up and walked over to the door. He called for Bill, who quickly came over to him.

"Did you check if Kaye Nielsen was ever enrolled in a school or not?" Mike asked.

Bill shook his head. "There was no Kaye Nielsen in any school in the Los Angeles area between 1943 and 1954. Granted, some schools didn't have the best records, but…"

Mike furrowed his brow. "What about an alias? Margaret might have given her a different last name so that no one could find her. Go back and check for any student named Kaye. She would have been in...oh, second grade or so in 1943. And don't just stick to LA county - look in Orange and Ventura as well. Heck, try Santa Barbara!"

Bill's face dropped. "You do know how many districts that has to be?!"

Mike pointed out to the bullpen. "And look at all the help you have!" He patted Bill on the shoulder and sent him on his way.

He then turned his attention to Steve. "And what is on your mind?"

"You think finding all that will help? So you find out that Kaye was in Mrs. Smith's third grade at Sunshine Elementary. So what? Our goal is to find Amy - not write a biography on the Nielsen family. Plus, a search like that could take forever! She may not have forever..." He suddenly got quiet.

"Maybe it will unearth some names - teachers, friends - those people help us fill in the missing years and maybe, just maybe, give us a clue to a location where Margaret felt comfortable and is holding Amy. It won't take forever; every man in this department knows that time is of the essence."

Steve rolled his eyes and turned to Lenny. "A Borderline...would they purposely get pregnant and then try to use that to hold on to the father?"

Lenny gave him a curious look. "I could see that, yes. Why?"

"If Margaret and Glen got a marriage license in April, then she was already two months pregnant. No wonder Palermo said he talked about her the way he did; he'd been tricked into marriage." He shook his head. "The further we dig, the more we uncover just how dysfunctional Amy's family is...yet we're no closer to finding her than before. We just know that she's somewhere in the world with a woman who's not above ruining lives or harming someone to get her way."

He walked to the door. "Maybe it would be better if she were on the side of that mountain...just like Margaret wanted in 1941." He turned the handle and left the office.

Mike and Lenny looked at each other, and without saying a word, Lenny stood up, walked out of the office and over to Steve. The two eventually left Homicide together. Mike felt better knowing that Lenny had finally persuaded Steve to get things off his chest. He only hoped it would help ease the young man's fears as the evidence surely wasn't.


	14. Chapter 14

_**Tuesday, May 14, 1974** _

_The case is going cold_...words that no detective ever wants to hear. It means that the criminal outsmarted the cop - that they got away with their crime. For some, the victim's lack of justice haunts them for the rest of their career. For others, the frustration of not finding answers for those left behind becomes unbearable. For Steve, being the detective and the left-behind loved one was slowly crushing his spirit.

Though no one had said those words out loud - or even dared hint at them - the dedicated inspectors of the Missing Persons and Homicide divisions were all thinking it was growing into a highly-likely scenario. All of their leads had either dried up or not panned out. Perez had managed to find the drug dealer who sold Margaret the PCP, but that just added a charge to her growing list of misdeeds; it did absolutely nothing for finding Amy.

The search for Margaret's missing past was turning up nothing. Though Bill and his team had managed to find several women named Kaye who were in second grade in 1943, so far none of them were Amy's aunt. It was looking more and more likely that if she had been in school then, it was under a completely different name. Mike suggested class photos, but the few the men were able to get ahold of resulted in nothing but a bunch of black and white faces of look-alike children. Steve tried calling Karen several times and discussing this new information in the hope that her mother would open up about her past, but he could never get ahold of anyone, making him worry more than he already was.

The news wasn't all bad though - the plane that had crashed in Arizona was not carrying Amy. The Arizona authorities and the FAA were finally able to determine it was full of business people from Seattle headed down to the Valley for some fun in the sun. It was a huge relief to Steve and everyone else, but it didn't get them closer to finding Amy. Her plane was still missing in action, a fact that no one could understand, even the people at the FAA with whom Drake had spoken.

Steve was managing to keep his head above water simply because of Jasmine's calls home; they gave him a sense of purpose and a reason to keep going. She needed to talk to him and, as much as he may not have admitted it out loud, he needed to talk to her too. Even when she called and did little but cry, it made Steve feel like he wasn't a complete failure when he could cheer her up and make her feel better. If nothing else was going right in his life, at least he was being a decent father.

Jasmine had managed to call him every night around 1 A.M. until early Monday morning. Steve waited for an hour thinking maybe she just had trouble getting to the phone, but the call never came. It didn't come the next night either. His worried mind decided to wait one more night, and if he didn't get a call, he was driving down to Phoenix himself. The lawyer he had talked to hadn't managed to get anywhere with the case yet, so Steve was dangerously close to taking matters into his own hands. Mike figured this out and tried to reason with Steve, but so far his words had fallen on deaf ears.

His and Jeannie's efforts to cheer up the man were not working much better. Jeannie, being the eternal sunshine in a world full of clouds, insisted on doing all she could to keep Steve happy. When Steve told her what had happened to Jasmine after she left, she was furious until she saw the anguish on his face. She knew that as upset as she was, he was ten times more upset over the whole thing, and she did not want to aggravate him any further. From then on she decided that she and Mike would make sure he was as happy as they could make him. In all the time she had known Steve, she had never seen him quite so depressed and it worried her immensely.

Steve acted grateful for the companionship, but it was as much an act as the one he put on at work every day. All he really wanted to do was sit at home and drown in his own sorrow. Every night he would stay awake listening to Amy's records and looking through her photo albums over and over again while he waited for Jasmine to call. Looking at images of Amy was as close to being with her as he was going to get, and he relished the time. Despite having to come up with more Stefan and Amelia tales that made him question his own abilities as a protector, he also enjoyed living in the make-believe world where he, Amy, and Jasmine were happy, even if it was just for a few minutes each night.

That Tuesday started out like all the others had recently - Steve came in, plastered a smile on his face, and went through the motions like a robot. He showed little emotion either way because if he did, he was afraid he'd lose it. If he became an emotionless machine, he could get through the day just fine without having anyone pity him or ask him endless questions. His fellow inspectors and friends were always trying to get him to show some kind of emotion - anger, joy...they didn't care either way - but Steve never wavered. It became a stressful time for everyone.

"What are we gonna do with him?" Norm asked Mike after he walked into his office late that morning.

"Stilwell?" Mike asked as he hung up the phone.

"No, Keller. I've never seen him, or anyone for that matter, so...blank."

Mike sat back and sighed. "I know. It worries me too. Lenny says it's all part of the grieving process and we should just watch him for signs of growing depression, but…" He trailed off, not sure what else he could say.

"I didn't mourn people I knew my whole life as much as he's mourning a woman he knew for a week," Norm said.

Mike gave him a dirty look. "Now don't start in with that! He feels bad enough without all of us questioning his feelings! We don't question some of the women you go out with - and Lord knows we could - so don't you. Amy's a good girl; he could have done a lot worse...and has."

Norm threw up his hands in surrender. "I didn't mean anything by it! I've just...well...never seen him like this before, that's all."

"Yeah...we just need to keep at this search even when we're running into brick walls. We also need to get Holloway off his back! Anything from Stilwell?"

Norm shook his head. "He's been squeaky clean all week, damn it. I've followed him all over the building, all around the neighborhood outside the station...I even followed him and Healey to that crime scene last Friday. Nothing. I had his desk phone tapped…"

"You what?" Mike interrupted.

"I had Communications tap his phone. I thought maybe Holloway would think he was being sneaky by calling him instead of seeing him in person, but so far that hasn't panned out either."

Mike chuckled. "That is so wrong in so many ways...but it's good thinking. Keep up on it. Just keep out of sight; he was in here yesterday complaining about you watching him all the time. You need to be more discreet."

"Hey, I'm like a ninja. He's just paranoid." Norm turned and walked out of the office.

As he walked back to his desk, the phone on Mark Stilwell's desk rang. The young inspector picked it up and greeted the caller with the customary greeting of his name and department.

"Pretend like you're talking to a girlfriend and not to me, got it?" Sergeant Holloway told him.

"Hey, Honey. Why are you calling me at work?" Mark replied without missing a beat.

"People are watching, so I can't talk to you in person. The phone will have to do."

"People are…" He looked up and saw Norm looking at him curiously. He smiled nervously and looked down at his desk. "Look, I have a lot of work to do. Could we talk about this later?"

"You don't even know why I called."

"Truthfully, I don't care," Mark muttered.

"Lose the attitude, Skippy. You're helping me because you want to, not because I forced you into it or anything. Now...how's Keller been holding up? I hear the case is going cold."

Mark paused to think about how he could not only convey what Holloway wanted to know without raising suspicion, but how he could say it in a way that would get Holloway off the phone. The man was right - he was doing this because he wanted to - but he still hated the guy just the same.

"Yeah, but he seems fine with it."

"Fine with it? What do you mean? He can't be fine with not finding Amy."

"I didn't say he liked the idea, just that he'll go along with it because he knows there's really no other option."

"So he's what? How's he acting?"

"Fine."

"Fine?"

"Yeah, fine. Whatever you want."

"He must be acting. Does he look like he's acting?"

Mark was getting annoyed at Holloway's persistence. "How should I know? I didn't ask him."

Holloway angrily sighed. "You're supposed to be good at reading people."

"Look, Honey, if you want to know so bad, ask him yourself. I haven't even seen him today. Plus, I really am busy."

"Fine. Just keep an eye on him. If he cracks...no... _when_  he cracks, you let me know. The longer he's on the force, the worse it will be for everyone. And if you guys get a lead on Amy's whereabouts, you let me know immediately! I want to get to that girl before they do." Holloway hung up the phone.

Mark pulled the receiver away from his ear and gave it a dirty look. "Love you too," he said before putting it back on the cradle.

He looked up and saw Norm looking at him again. He chuckled. "Women. Can't please 'em."

"Can I give you a little tip about women?" Norm asked. "They don't like to hear that you don't care what they're saying. You generally don't care, but you don't let them know that! All it does is put you in the doghouse."

Mark smiled at the fact that his ruse seemed to have worked. "So I should have just smiled and nodded and said, 'Yes, Dear'?"

Norm nodded. "Exactly. Life is always much better when the little woman thinks you care about her inane problems."

Mark nodded like he thought this was good advice. "The problems with their relatives are the worst, aren't they?"

"Oh, Kid...don't even get me started on that!"

The two laughed and continued to rag on women until Norm's phone rang. After he answered, Mark shook his head and wondered just how that man was still single.

A few minutes later, he looked at his watch and noticed it was well past lunch time, so he stood up and began heading out the door. On his way out, he physically ran into a man coming into Homicide. Before Mark could even apologize, the man asked him if he was Steve Keller.

Mark looked the man up and down. He was dressed like a biker with a black leather jacket, blue jeans, and black boots. He was also wearing dark sunglasses and sporting a scraggly beard.

"No...I'm...a...I'm not Keller," he muttered, intimidated by the man's looks. "He's not here right now."

"Give him this," the man grunted before shoving a brown clasp envelope at Mark and walking off.

He took the envelope and looked at it, thinking less about it and more about why he suddenly felt like he'd seen the biker before. Turning around to get another look at the man, Mark found that he had disappeared as fast as he had appeared. He found it odd but shook it off.

He looked back at the envelope itself, this time actually concentrating on it. There was nothing remarkable about it; Steve's name was written in cursive on the front, but it was not stamped as if it had gone through the mail. Mark wasn't a hundred percent sure what to do with it considering whom it had been delivered by, but he also didn't feel it was his place to pry, so he simply walked back into the squad room and set it on Steve's desk before leaving to eat. It may not have been Holloway's way, but Mark chose to still have a conscious.

An hour later, Steve came back from his errand to find the envelope on his desk. "What is this?" he said to no one in particular as he picked it up.

Norm walked by on the way to his own desk. "I dunno. Stilwell set it there before he left." He stopped and looked at the envelope with Steve.

Mark walked in room. "What did I do?"

Steve held up the envelope. "You gave me something?"

Mark shook his head. "I didn't. Some guy asked me if I was you and when I said no, he shoves that in my face and tells me to give it to you."

Steve looked back down at the envelope. "Who was the guy?"

"No idea...but he did look familiar," Mark said as he walked to Steve's desk and joined him and Norm.

"Are you gonna open it?" Norm asked, a slight air of apprehension in his voice.

"Well...I'll have to, won't I?" Steve uttered. He tried not to sound worried, but he wasn't faking it well.

The three stood and looked at the envelope as Mike walked in. "What are you three doing standing around? If you don't have enough to do…" He stopped when he saw that Steve was holding something.

"What is that?" he asked.

Steve shook his head. "I don't even recognize the handwriting." He shook the envelope. "Sounds like papers."

"That's usually what people put in envelopes," Mark said.

Norm rolled his eyes. "Look, just open it and find out what it is so we can all move on with our lives. It's probably nothing….probably."

"Nothing? From a guy that looked like that?"

All eyes went to Mark.

"Looked like what?" Mike asked.

"Like one of the Hell's Angels?"

The four looked back down at the envelope, which was still in Steve's hand. This went on for a moment more until Steve said, "Oh, this is ridiculous. What could it be anyway?"

He began opening the envelope as the other three gave each other worrisome looks. After opening the flap, Steve looked into the envelope and found two papers - one normal and one half-sized. He pulled out the bigger piece first and saw it was a letter or sorts, although it was very short.

As Steve read, the other three looked over his shoulder and read it with him.

"What the hell does that mean?" Mark pondered.

"Am I the only one who's slightly disappointed that that witch is still alive?" Norm asked.

"What is she trying to pull?" Mike wondered aloud.

Steve, unlike the others, was silent. The letter didn't say much, but it said enough to send a cold chill down his spine and make the rest of his body go numb. All he could do was stare at the cryptic handwritten words and speculate.

_Mr. Keller,_

_I hope you're pleased with yourself. I'm not exactly sure what game you're playing, or why you chose my family to play it with, but if this was your endgame then congratulations. You win! I've spent my life trying to prevent this, and I was doing a fine job until you came along. I've had the displeasure of meeting men like you in my life, and seen other women do the same, and the experience always turned out bad. But this time….no, this time it wasn't just stealing some poor girl's virtue or her money. This time...you went too far. I hope you get exactly what's coming to you! I'm only writing this so that you'll stop the search for my daughter. But know this: you will pay._

_Margaret Johnson_

The handwriting got more illegible as the letter got angrier, but the point was clear - Margaret Johnson had just started some kind of war with Steve.

"You will pay? What do you suppose she means by that? She's not actually seeking revenge...is she?" Mark asked innocently. "I mean…" He just shook his head; he had no idea what to do with this mess he felt he was going to end up in the middle of.

"She better not be dumb enough to try anything! I'll personally throw away the key to her cell," Norm muttered.

Mike looked at Steve and tried to read his reaction. The boy was stone-faced.

"She's trying to get at you, Buddy Boy," he finally said. "She's trying to intimidate you and scare you away so you'll leave Amy alone. That's all this is! You remember what Lenny said about her; she'll do anything to keep Amy to herself."

Norm nodded and patted Steve on the shoulder. "Mike's right. The woman is nuts. Don't let her get to you. It's probably all a lie anyway...whatever she's talking about."

"Are you guys sure you're not underestimating this woman? San Quentin is full of people that someone said were just crazy, but harmless. That is until they killed someone," Mark added.

Norm and Mike glared at him.

"You're a real ray of sunshine, Kid," Norm grumbled. He turned to Steve. "Don't listen to him. This woman isn't exactly a hardened criminal; she's just a nut."

"A desperate nut," Steve added in a near-whisper.

"Give me that envelope," Mike said, reaching out his hand to take the package from Steve. Once in his possession, Mike peered inside and saw the smaller paper. Upon further examination, he found it to be a photograph. He pulled it out while holding the envelope so that only he could see the picture.

Try as he might to keep his poker face, the shock of the image broke him down. He grasped then quickly tried to cover it up by clearing his throat.

"What is it, Lieutenant? Another threat?" Mark asked, noticing the cover up.

Mike snapped his head up and looked at Mark. "Nothing. It's nothing," he said so quickly that all the words became one.

"That's not a 'nothing' reaction, Mike," Norm informed him.

"Really….it's nothing," was all Mike said before quickly putting the photo back in the envelope and rushing into his office.

The whole group began following, but Steve stopped them. He gave them a look that said "I need to do this alone." They stayed put while Steve wandered into Mike's office, shutting the door behind him.

"What is it, Mike?" he asked as he watched his partner shove the envelope into a desk drawer.

"Steve, really, it's nothing," he insisted.

Steve took a deep breath. "Norm is right - that's not a nothing reaction." He looked into Mike's eyes. "I can handle it."

Mike met his gaze momentarily, but he soon found it difficult to look into Steve's eyes. He looked down before saying, "No...no you can't."

"Why don't you let me decide that?" Steve replied coolly. "I'm a lot stronger than anyone around here seems to think."

Mike looked back up at him. "You are strong. In any other instance you're one of the strongest men I know."

"But?"

Mike paused. "Not this time."

Steve was slowly getting angry. "Dammit, Mike, just show me whatever it is! Stop treating me like a damn child!"

Mike wanted to snap back  _Then stop acting like one_ , but he knew that wouldn't do either of them any good. Steve's behavior wasn't a hundred percent his fault anyway. He also knew that Steve would lose any composure he had left if he left the man in the dark, so he looked up to the ceiling, said a quick prayer, and pulled out the envelope. He dropped it on his desk and let Steve take it from there.

Steve took a step forward and grabbed the envelope, looking at Mike the entire time. Once he had it in his hands, he reopened it and took out the photograph. He initially pulled it out backward and saw there was writing on the back.

_You'll never figure out where she is now, will you?_ , written in the same handwriting, was all it said.

Steve narrowed his eyes and turned the photograph over. For what seemed like an eternity to Mike, he stared at it as if he were trying to memorize every last detail. He also seemed to have no physical reaction at first which worried Mike. Had he become that dead inside that this brought out no emotion in him?

Fortunately for Mike, his fears were quickly allayed when Steve's breathing became unsteady and rapid. Mike reached over his desk and grabbed the photo out of Steve's hand.

"Now look, Buddy Boy...we have no idea that this is even real! This could be another trick of hers!"

Steve looked up at Mike, tears collecting in the corners of his eyes. "How do you get a shot like that without the person actually being dead? Hmm?"

"She's asleep," Mike hastily spit out.

"Then how come she's blue?" Steve countered.

Mike rushed around his desk and grabbed Steve's shoulders as if to shake some sense into him. "It's a game! She's playing a game with you! It's some demented psychological game meant to break you! DON'T PLAY THE GAME, STEVE!"

Steve looked right into Mike's eyes. "She's dead, Mike. There is no game." He then turned around, opened the door, and walked out of Homicide.

Norm and Mark, who had been watching from outside Mike's office, looked to Mike for guidance. Mike gave Norm a look that told him to follow Steve and make sure he didn't do anything drastic. Mark stood in Mike's doorway looking down at the floor.

"Bad?" he inquired.

Mike, still unsure of how much to trust him, simply restated his question as a statement as he picked up the picture and examined it again. There lay Amy on a stainless steel table, her eyes closed and her hair looking like it had been wet. Her skin was a pale shade of dead.

He wanted to believe it was an elaborate ruse, but he couldn't get past how real it looked. In his almost three decades long career, he had seen plenty of photographs of corpses, both out in the field and on the coroner's table. He knew what a dead body looked like, and this definitely looked like a dead body. He tried looking at her skin and hair for clues that he was wrong, but his eyes kept drifting up to her face. She looked so peaceful yet broken at the same time. Soon, her face became blurry as Mike's eyes filled with tears.

Mark snapped Mike out of his trance by shouting, "I know where I've seen him!"

After his initial startle, he looked up at the young man. "Seen who?"

"The biker...the guy who gave me that envelope! He was one of the guys in those sketches Bryan Palermo gave us."

"So he's one of her...goons I guess." He looked back down at the photograph and pondered. "You know...I think you may be right."

Mark looked shocked. "I am? About what?"

"Us underestimating Margaret Johnson. I think she's a lot more dangerous than we gave her credit for."

Mike quickly put the photo back in the envelope and rushed out the door without saying any more. Mark simply stood still.

"No, that's okay. I don't need to know where you're going," Mark muttered under his breath. He then walked back to his desk and sat down, pondering everything that had just happened and whether or not to inform Holloway.

_I could just sit on this and use it to my advantage instead of his_ , he thought, smirking at the possibility of being the top dog over Holloway. He then thought to what Mike had just said. "Of course I was right," he said out loud to no one.

* * *

"Charlie, I want you to tell me everything you can about this picture," Mike said to the lab man as he pulled the picture out of the envelope.

Charlie took the photo and was taken aback. "I have to admit, Mike, I don't get a lot of autopsy photos in here. But upon first glance, I can tell you it's a picture of a dead woman."

Mike gave Charlie an exasperated look. "Very comical. I don't mean that. I mean...well...I need to know where this was taken, or if it's an authentic photo. You know, not doctored in some way. And if she's actually dead or not."

Charlie gave him a curious look.

"I know. But we're not dealing with a sane criminal here. This girl may be alive. I just need to know anything you can tell me about it."

Charlie could hear the desperation in Mike's voice. "I'll do what I can, Mike," he answered sincerely.

Mike shook his hand. "I appreciate it. You'll never know how much," he said before turning around and walking out the door.

Charlie looked back down at the photograph and tried to figure out where to even start.

In the meantime, Norm caught up with Mike and told him Steve was going home. He'd managed to convince him that going home and getting some rest was the best thing he could do at the moment.

Mike nodded and thanked the sergeant, who promptly made his way to Communications - that phone call from Mark's "girlfriend" threw up a red flag for him.

Mike then made two phone calls. The first call was to Jeannie. Without giving away too many details, he informed her that something happened that lead everyone to believe that Amy might be dead. He asked if she'd pop over to Steve's and check on him. She agreed without hesitation.

His second call was to Lenny. He told the man about what had happened and Steve's reaction to it. They discussed that for a while before Mike asked, "Lenny, I need you to tell me everything that you can about people like Margaret Johnson."


	15. Chapter 15

_**Tuesday, May 14, 1974** _

Jeannie knocked on the door to Steve's apartment. There was no answer, but she knew he was home since his car was parked in the street. She knocked again and called out to him.

"Steve? It's Jeannie! I brought some dinner. I thought maybe I could cook for you. I have this new recipe that I've been meaning to try and thought…"

The door opened in the middle of her plea. "...you'd be a good guinea pig." She smiled.

Steve stood at the doorway looking more disheveled than the day Mike and Norm had shown up at his door. He looked at the girl before him holding a paper grocery sack. "That's why you're here?"

She nodded. "Mike's tired of being my taste tester. I needed someone new."

Steve ran his fingers through his hair and moved to the side to let Jeannie in the apartment. As she stepped over the threshold, he added, "Mike talked to you, didn't he?"

"About what?" Jeannie asked innocently as she walked into Steve's kitchen and set the bag down on the counter.

Steve stood in the entryway to his kitchen and leaned against the wall. "About Amy being dead," he said very emotionless and matter-of-factly.

Jeannie, who had begun taking food out of the bag, quickly swung around. "Amy being dead? Mike doesn't think that!"

"Jeannie….stop. Just stop. Mike called you and told you that she was dead so you better get over here and babysit me." There was mild exasperation in his voice.

"No, what he told me was that something happened that led everyone to believe she  _might_  be gone. Might. He didn't tell me what, but I got the sense that he didn't believe it, whatever it was. He worries about you, Steve! We all do."

She walked over to him and gave him a hug. "You're family, and when one member of the family hurts, we all do." She pulled away and looked up at him. "So like it or not, we're going to worry."

"There's no reason to worry though. I'm fine!" Steve let go of Jeannie, wandered over to his couch, and flopped down. He then reached over and grabbed a bottle of beer off his coffee table.

Jeannie folded her arms over her chest and wandered over to the couch. "You really expect me to believe that?" She paused before asking, "Why do you do that?"

"Do what?" Steve asked before taking a swig of his beer.

"Pretend that nothing bothers you and that Amy was nothing! It's heartless!"

"It was only a week, Jeannie. No one becomes your girlfriend in a week. Hell, we only went on one date! Welcome to dating in the 70's, Kiddo."

Jeannie's face was turning red. "Oh really? Then what was she?" Her tone grew snottier by the second.

"A..." He searched his brain for an answer. "An interesting experience," he finally blurted out. "A fun ride while it lasted." He took another drink.

Steve's callousness sickened Jeannie. "Ohhhh! That may be true of other women you've dated, but not Amy! You thought the world of her!"

"How the hell would you know? You never even met her," Steve snapped.

"I didn't have to! Between talking to you, Mike, Jasmine, and the one time I talked to her on the phone, I got a pretty good sense of what was going on. This was different; Amy was different."

She took a deep breath, unfolded her arms, and sat down on the coffee table in front of Steve. "The subconscious mind does a lot of things that the conscious mind doesn't realize. You end up doing things you don't even know you're doing, but others see it. Like every time you talk about Amy, your voice raises just a little. It's a little higher pitched than normal," she explained, her voice more mellow than before.

"What? That's ridiculous!" Steve scoffed.

"No it's not! It's science! When people are happy or excited, the muscles around their larynx contract, which makes the pitch of their voice higher. You're excited when you talk about Amy because you love her. I've never heard your voice do that with other women."

Steve rolled his eyes. "It does not," he muttered.

"It does so! You just don't notice it."

"Maybe I just never talked about other women. If I had, my voice would have done that with them too."

This time it was Jeannie who rolled her eyes. "That's a lie and you know it. You talked about a lot of them. That spark just wasn't there because you didn't feel anything for them."

Jeannie paused and Steve shook his head.

"The sparkle wasn't in your eyes either like it is with Amy," Jeannie finally added. "Your eyes just light up."

"Oh c'mon! Now you're just making stuff up! You sound ridiculous!"

"I do not! You're the one who sounds ridiculous, lying there talking like this woman meant nothing to you! You know, I feel sorry for her, wherever she is. She's probably out there hoping and praying that you'll find and rescue her, yet in reality you're here acting like she didn't mean enough to you for you to...to...save her cat from a tree! Ugh!" Jeannie threw up her hands in exasperation and stood up, turning away from Steve.

He shot up and scowled at Jeannie. "I do not think that!"

She turned back toward him. "You sure act like you do! You're starting to act like she never existed!"

"Well...maybe it would have been better if she hadn't!" he yelled.

Those words caused time to pause and the sound to exit the room. Neither Jeannie nor Steve acknowledged the statement. Jeannie was too shocked and saddened by it, and Steve wasn't sure if he meant it or not.

After what seemed like an hour-long pause, Jeannie, through newly-formed tears, finally said, "How can you say that?"

Steve propped his arms on his knees and put his face in his hands. "Because I want the pain and guilt to go away," he said quietly.

"Guilt? What guilt?" Jeannie inquired.

"The guilt I've felt ever since I met her."

Jeannie sat down once again on the coffee table and placed a hand gently on Steve's forearm. "What do you have to feel guilty about? I don't understand."

Steve took a deep breath but never looked up at Jeannie. "Did I ever tell you how we met?"

Jeannie shook her head. "No. Mike said it had something to do with a case, but he didn't elaborate. Was it on a case?"

Steve nodded. He then took his head out of his hands and sat back. Jeannie saw that his face was now wet from tears. She moved her hand from his arm to his knee.

"April 17th. I was down at the Cypress Lawn Cemetery on a stakeout. The weather was awful, and I was there to hopefully arrest this guy who'd been on the run after brutally murdering his ex-girlfriend, so I wasn't really in a great mood anyway. As I was waiting, I started watching a funeral that was going on adjacent to where we thought our murderer would show up."

He paused as a slight smile formed on his face. "And there she was. She'd come in a cab alone, and she never did talk to anyone. She just looked...so sad."

"She was at a funeral."

"Yeah...but there's sad, and then there's sad. She was extra sad. She was all-alone-in-the-world sad. Okay, admittedly I initially thought she was pretty good-looking…"

Jeannie chuckled.

"...but that's not what kept me watching her. She just seemed in such a deep sorrow that she'd never smile again. She was too pretty to spend the rest of her life in misery. I suddenly found myself miles away from that stakeout...I was in her world, and I was trying to figure out ways to make her smile. Like, that's all I could think of - getting this girl to smile."

He looked down at his lap. "I don't think I ever really came back to reality completely...and it got her shot."

"How? You didn't shoot her, did you?"

Steve shook his head. "No, the other guy did, but if I had been paying more attention to my job, I would have gotten to him long before he got anywhere near her. But I couldn't take my eyes off her. All I wanted to do was talk to her before she disappeared forever."

"Aww...that's so sweet," Jeannie cooed.

"Yeah, sweet. I should have seen that Milani was there, but I was watching Amy instead. She ended up in the middle of a showdown between him and me, and she got shot." The memory stirred up Steve's emotions and a few tears fell from his eyes.

"Did she blame you?" Jeannie asked.

Steve snickered. "Not at all. She said it was her fault. He had her and was dragging her to his car when she kicked him in the crotch. He ended up shooting her in the side."

Jeannie laughed. "Good for her!"

"In a way. She did get away and he got arrested, but she still got shot. She had such a time getting over it…" He looked off to his right at the living room window.

"Yeah, but she never blamed you! And you weren't the only guy there, right? So where were the other inspectors when this guy was coming into the cemetery?"

Steve just shrugged.

"I'd say if there was any blame to be had, it should be spread around at least! Oh, Steve, you're just being too hard on yourself."

He said nothing, choosing to stare off at the world outside.

"Is there something else?" Jeannie asked, worried that his demeanor meant there was more to the story.

"She never would have gotten kidnapped by Paul if it weren't for me," he muttered.

"What? How could you have prevented that? Mike told me about that day, and from what I understand, he was coming for Amy regardless of where you were! Heck, you could have gotten yourself killed here if you'd have stayed!"

Steve took a deep breath and went into a rant that if Sergeant Holloway had heard, he would have had Steve's job that second.

"I should have been Steve Keller the cop and not Steve Keller the hero. If I'd have been thinking like a cop and not like a man wanting to be her sole protector, I would've had her stay in a hotel or something. She would have had twenty-four hour protection...no one would have known where she was. Her mother wouldn't have known…but I thought I could keep her safe all on my own."

What little composure he had left melted away. "It's my fault Amy and Karen almost died!" he shouted. "It's my fault Paul got mad in the first place! It's my fault her mother kidnapped her! If I just hadn't been in the picture..."

"Now you stop that!" Jeannie scolded. "You'll never win playing the what if game! The past is gone; there's nothing we can do about it now. All we can do is work with what we're left with."

Steve finally turned back to Jeannie. The pain and anger she saw in his eyes frightened her.

"What exactly am I left with? I doubt I'll have my job when Holloway is through with me. I don't have her because I let her get attacked and kidnapped. It drove her so far over the edge that she killed herself."

"You don't know that," Jeannie tried to reason even though she didn't know the circumstances behind his claim.

"At this point, does it really matter? It's been fifteen days; we should have found her by now.  _I_  should have found her by now."

Jeannie wanted to argue, but she knew it wouldn't do any good. "You still have Jasmine. That little girl adores you and would be lost without you," she finally told him.

"Oh sure...another person I let down. Instead of being here where she belongs, she's living in hell because I put her mother in the hospital." He shook his head and stood up. "No, she's better off without me...they both are."

As he began to wander around his living room, he snickered. "When we first met, she was convinced that she was a jinx that caused everyone around her to die. Turns out it wasn't her - it was me. And now they're both paying for my mistakes."

In a sudden fit of rage, Steve turned and punched the wall. The wall won.

Jeannie sat and watched as Steve tried to pretend he wasn't in pain, but he wasn't fooling her.

"I sure hope that made you feel better, and it's out of your system," she scolded as she stood up and went to check on his hand.

At first, he wouldn't let her see, but the throbbing, shooting pain got to be a bit much. After seeing how red his hand already was, she dragged him to the kitchen for ice.

The two sat in the kitchen in silence. Steve sat with his hand under a bag of ice, and Jeannie alternated from sitting to puttering with her dinner ingredients.

"They weren't all mistakes, you know," she quietly said after several minutes. She took a seat at the table across from Steve.

"What are you talking about?" Steve muttered.

"All the things you think you did wrong."

"And just how do you figure that?" He winced as another pain shot through his hand.

"Falling in love isn't a mistake. It's never a mistake when two people who fit together like the perfect puzzle find each other."

Steve gave her a cynical look. "You steal that off a greeting card?"

"No! It's just true. Plus, you did what you thought was best at the time. No one can fault you for that."

"Sure. You tell Holloway that he should let me off the hook because it's true love, and that's never a mistake."

"Mike says that guy is a dirty rotten jerk anyway and just wants to create his own perfect police department."

"That may be true, but it doesn't matter. He'll get his way." He stood up. "And maybe it's for the best. Seems I can't do anything right anyway."

Jeannie gave him a quizzical look. "What do you mean? I'm sure you're done falling for damsels in distress."

Steve started walking out of the kitchen. "It's not just her. I'm going to be under a microscope from now on. Every move I make is going to be suspicious. Holloway will make sure no one trusts anything I do."

He looked back at Jeannie. "And you know what the real problem is? He shouldn't because I'd do it again in a heartbeat. If I went back, knowing everything I know now, I'd still do the same thing...because I wanted to be the only one who saved her. I still do. I guess I don't trust her life in anyone's hands but mine. But look how that turned out."

"Do you really want to just give up?" Jeannie asked, concerned about his apparent lack of caring.

Steve looked her right in the eyes. "She's dead, Jeannie. She gave up first."

He let out a sigh, muttered something about aspirin, and headed toward the bathroom. Jeannie sat at the kitchen table and just pondered. She was far too worried to think of anything helpful though, so she started her dinner in the hopes that a distraction would clear her mind and lead her to the perfect solution.

After grabbing the pills, Steve wandered into his bedroom and closed the door. As well-meaning as he knew Jeannie was, he really needed some time away from her optimism. He grabbed one of the photo albums he had not looked through and flopped down on the bed. All he wanted to do was drown himself in his own sorrow.

This album was the most recent as it was full of pictures of her and Jasmine. It would have been a shock to anyone looking at the photos to learn that Amy wasn't Jasmine's mother. They posed just like a loving mother and daughter would. Their smiles made Steve smile, but it also cemented the idea in his head that the two were better off without him. His depressed mind told him that he had never - and could never - make them that happy. He ignored the fact that Amy had told him that he made her feel better than anyone had in a long time. He also forgot how much better he'd made Jasmine feel during their phone calls. No, the two had only gone through hell because of his mistakes.

On one of the last pages was the photograph that Jasmine had shown Steve on their first meeting - the one of her and Amy standing in front of the fountain in Ghirardelli Square. It was the first time he's seen Amy happy, and it warmed his heart. Her smile still did.

"I wish you two were here," he said to the photograph. "I know you didn't think I wanted to be thrown into a family so quickly, but now that it's gone…" He stopped as tears were once again threatening to make an appearance.

"I am so sorry. You both put too much faith in me I guess. You don't deserve to be living through what you are...or not living through…" He slammed the book shut; he couldn't look at Amy and Jasmine anymore without feeling like he wanted to stab himself in the gut.

"You had so much to live for, Babe. Much more than I do right now. I don't know how I'm supposed to live with knowing that I caused you to give up. Jeannie's right, isn't she? You waited for me to rescue you...and I didn't. God...what you must have thought." He shook his head. "You probably thought I didn't care...or that I didn't love you."

His breathing became ragged as he fought off tears. "Nothing could have been further from the truth. I am...just...lost without you. I only knew you a week, but you meant more to me in that one week than anyone else ever has. I honestly never thought I'd fall in love with someone. You know...actual love. But the moment I met you, and you looked at me with those beautiful blue eyes like a lost little girl who needed a friend...I guess it awakened something in me that I didn't even know was there."

He sat up. "And this is how I repay you. Great guy I am. I promise you that you'll be safe and no one will hurt you. You trust me to keep that promise...and then I break it. No, smash it. Maybe they were all right about me. Maybe I am just a pig who brainwashed you into thinking life was great or something."

Steve winced as punching the bed made his already bruised hand hurt more. He picked up the photo album he had been looking at and threw it back on the pile. Even though looking through the albums made him feel terrible, he picked up the last one he hadn't looked through and lay back down on the bed.

Upon opening the album, he found this one to contain photos from Amy's high school days. As happy as she had been in the pictures with Jasmine, she was that much unhappy in these. She was still smiling but not in the same way she smiled at him. It was forced and insincere. There was pure sadness behind the smiles. Steve wondered if that was how she smiled before the end - in a state of sad relief. Sad that Steve had betrayed her but relieved that her pain was over.

That thought was too much for Steve to handle. He once again slammed the album shut, only this time he let his emotions out. After several minutes of that, he tried pulling himself together in case Jeannie came by to check on him. As he picked up the album off his bed, a small piece of paper fell out.

He threw the album on the pile and looked at the paper. It was a poem about letting go of painful memories and things that are holding a person down. He could tell by the condition of the paper that Amy had read it many times. The fact that it was in the album with the high school pictures led Steve to believe that it was a way for Amy to try and deal with Paul. He then wondered if she was also using the words with him in mind. Maybe she had said them right before she died. Maybe she'd even said them several times before that. Maybe she hadn't managed to let go and that's why she ended it all. The thoughts ran through Steve's mind like a never-ending horse race.

* * *

Jeannie finished her meal and realized that Steve never came back after getting aspirin. Worried, she went to his bedroom door and knocked. It was met with silence. She knocked again and quietly called out his name. Still nothing. More worried, she tried the handle and found the door unlocked, so she quietly walked in the room. There, in the fading light of the day, she saw Steve lying face down on his bed sound asleep. As she walked closer, she saw a prescription bottle laying next to him.

"Steve?" she said, trying to wake him. "Steve?" He was dead to the world, so she picked up the bottle, curious as to what he had taken.

She figured it had been some sort of painkiller - and she was partially right. It was just for a different kind of pain. This drug killed emotional pain. Steve had taken some of Amy's Valium that she'd had in her suitcase in an effort to stop his mind from thinking.

Jeannie sighed. "I hope you only took one," she whispered.


	16. Chapter 16

**_Wednesday, May 15, 1974_ **

Amy stood at the edge of the pool closest to the house. Steve stood on the opposite side facing her. Looking to his left and right, he found that his path was blocked on both sides by a random assortment of coffins and thorny bushes of black flowers, so the only way for him to get to Amy was through the pool. As he was wearing a suit, that wasn't his favorite option.

Amy, standing in a long black lace nightgown, dipped her right foot in the water, moving it back and forth and making small waves.

"It's peaceful, isn't it, the water? So calming. Makes you forget your troubles," she said to him.

"It...it can be I suppose. But it can also be turbulent and treacherous. Like in a hurricane." Steve could feel a huge sense of dread and it was making him sick to his stomach.

"Steve, this is L.A.; we don't have hurricanes here."

"You have! Yeah...just a couple years ago two of them hit. Um...something that started with an h and, uh...Joanne, wasn't it?"

Amy laughed. "Hyacinth and Joanne. First of all, Hyacinth hit just north of San Diego, not here, and it barely did a thing. And Joanne affected Arizona." She chuckled again and began singing, "It never rains in California...but girl don't they warn ya...it pours..."

Steve rolled his eyes. "What does it matter anyway? I'm here now, so what troubles could you have?"

Amy, who had been solely focused on the water, looked up at Steve and stated matter-of-factly, "You. You're my trouble."

Steve felt like he'd just been hit by a ton of bricks. "Me?!" he gasped. "Honey...I..."

"I didn't say I didn't love you, but you _are_ my problem." She turned around and pointed to the dilapidated mansion behind her. "Right now, in there, a woman with a gun is looking for me. I finally managed to escape but, well, no one leaves her. So, she's going to kill me instead. I don't know about you, but I don't wanna die that way."

She looked back down at the pool. "I want to go my way - tranquilly. That way, whenever I end up...wherever I'm going...I'll be at peace. I'm really looking forward to finding out what that feels like."

Another ton of bricks fell on Steve. "You were never at peace with me?"

Amy quickly shook her head. "Not fully, no. Paul didn't help, and neither did my mother, but...I don't know...I always felt you were someplace else when you were with me."

Steve, forgetting that the only way to Amy was through the water, tried to walk around to her, but couldn't get there without injuring himself on the thorny bushes.

"Amy, where else would I have been? You were my whole life! The only place I wanted to be was with you!" he shouted, exasperated.

"And you were...physically," she countered back. "Mentally though..." She shrugged and turned her attention back to moving her foot around in pool water.

"Where was I, huh? And don't you dare tell me with some other woman!" He was getting irritated with this figment of his stressed-out imagination.

She nodded. "Probably. It's just your nature."

"My nature?! What the hell does that mean?!"

Amy waved her hand like a magician and immediately all the symbols of death that were in Steve's way turned into women. "Look familiar?"

Steve looked around and saw many a man's greatest nightmare - all his exes. Not just women he'd considered actual girlfriends but also one-time dates and unrequited crushes. He was surrounded by a veritable sea of women, all of whom were dressed exactly like Amy.

"What in the hell..." he muttered under his breath.

"How many women are here Steve?" Amy asked.

"I...I..." he stammered. "...have no idea."

Amy grunted knowingly, satisfied that she was proving her point. "How many of them do you remember?"

Steve scoffed. "All of them, of course."

Amy's scrunched up her face and narrowed her eyes, so he quickly spat out, "I mean none of them! Once you came into my life, I forgot everyone else!"

Amy stared at him. "Well which is it?"

He started stammering out another answer, so she cut him off. "What's her name?" she asked, pointing at a tall blonde standing next to her.

Steve looked at the woman. She looked familiar, but no name was coming to him. "I...uh…"

"Thanks a lot, Keller," the woman said. "Gabrielle...you remember now? Berkeley...1965...the library…?"

Shaking his head, he shrugged and mumbled, "Not really."

Gabrielle rolled her eyes. "And you said you could see us having a future together."

Steve started saying, "I wouldn't have said that…" but Gabrielle vanished into thin air. He rubbed his eyes wondering if he was seeing things.

"How about her? You remember her?" Amy asked. Steve looked at where she had been standing, but she was no longer there.

"I'm over here," she said from off to his left. He quickly swung around and saw her now standing by a brunette of average height.

"How did you get…"

"Steve, it's a dream. I can do anything. You remember her?" she asked, pointing at the new lady.

"Uh, sure. Brandy?"

"Barbara!" the woman reminded him. "We went out for a year!"

Steve started to chuckle. "No, we dated on and off for a year. Nothing serious."

"Oh, that's right! I forgot." She turned to Amy. "He'd call whenever he needed someone to sleep with."

"Oh my God, don't tell her that!" Steve yelled.

Sticking out her tongue and rolling her eyes, Amy growled, "How romantic," before waving her hand and making Barbara disappear. "I don't think we need to see her anymore."

She turned and wandered away from Steve and into the sea of exes. Steve followed her.

"Amy, what the hell is the point of this anyway? Why is my past such a big deal to you? You should be happy I don't remember any of these women!" he said as he looked at the faces he passed. He honestly thought some of them were complete strangers.

He managed to make it all the way around the pool without catching up to Amy. He couldn't figure out how he could have missed her.

"Amy, where are you? Stop walking so we can talk about this!"

"I did stop," he heard her say. Looking off to his right, where her voice came from, he saw nothing but a bunch of faces all blurred together.

"Can't see the trees for the forest, huh Steve?" she said. "I'm standing right in the front."

Squinting, he saw that, indeed, she'd been standing in plain sight the entire time. "But I passed you…"

"I know. But we all look alike now...just like trees in a forest. No one tree is anything special; it's just like all the other trees. So you pass it by and forget about it...just like you forgot all of us."

"I didn't forget you!" he argued. his voice raising.

"You will...just like you forgot all of them." She waved her hands around causing all the exes to dissipate. "You didn't know me nearly as long as some of them, and yet you managed to let them go. Let me go, Steve." Tears began rolling down her cheeks.

He looked at her sternly. "No."

"Why not! You want me to die a painful death at the hands of a lunatic?"

"I don't want you to die at all! I want to spend the rest of my life waking up looking at your beautiful face, and I can't do that if I let you just give up!"

"Then what took you so long? How come you never found me? I waited and waited for you to find me...and nothing. I finally realized that you didn't care enough to fight for me so I let go. I've been so happy ever since. Whatever is waiting for me on the other side will be nice - nicer than my life here." She smiled even though she was still crying.

Steve lost it. "How can you say that?! I've been looking for you since the second I found out you were gone! I never stopped! Your mother is just wicked and insists on playing this game with your life!"

"You guys can certainly outsmart my mother." She shook her head and the tears began flowing heavily.

"I can't move on until you let me go! See? I'll try to fall into this water, but I won't." She did just as she said; she tried falling face first into the pool, but an invisible forced stopped her. She tried several times and got the same result each time.

"You know why this happens? Because you won't let me fall. You keep hanging on to my memory, and it's keeping me alive."

"Why is that a bad thing?! Dammit, Amy, I love you! I am not letting you go! You have entirely too much to live for!"

"Like what?" she asked in disbelief.

"Well, I would say me, but I'm not sure I want to hear your response to that."

"Steve...don't you realize that you're better off without me?"

"No, I don't realize that!" he shouted, sounding much angrier than he actually was. He took a deep breath to calm himself. "I mean, I don't realize that because it's not true."

Amy shook her head. "Mental problems are hereditary you know."

"So? What does that have to do with anything?"

"I could very well end up like my mother. I mean, look at her parents. They were both nuts and she ended up nuts too. I will probably end up nuts, and where will that leave you? Stuck, just like my dad. Stuck with a woman he wants to get rid of but can't."

"You know about all that?" Steve asked her.

She shook her head. "No, you do. I'm speaking from your subconscious, which apparently thinks I'm going to end up crazy."

"Nothing in my body thinks you'll end up crazy! You are not your mother! She was crazy when she was just a kid; you're older than that and still perfectly normal!"

"Perfectly normal? I worry too much. I have a terrible jealous streak. I don't trust anyone. I put negative thoughts in other people's heads…"

"And yet I still love you! God, Amy, I...You know, I'm a pretty simple guy. All that I ask is that you don't cheat on me or try to kill me in my sleep. Anything else I can handle."

"But what if I do try to kill you one day? My mother probably tried to kill Daddy for all I know. Don't you see I'm doomed?"

Steve screamed an exasperated scream at her. "Stop not listening to anything I say!" He took another deep breath. "Okay...okay, fine. Let's say for argument's sake that I do let you go. What about Jasmine? Hmm? You think she'll just let you go?"

Amy shrugged. "She still has you," she said quietly.

"She wants you! You're the one who's taken care of her all these years! You're her mother!"

Amy shook her head furiously. "I'm a lousy mother. I can't even keep her away from bitches and child molesters. She'd be better off with someone else."

"That wasn't your fault! Besides, I'm gonna get her out of there, and then the three of us can be a family."

Amy looked at Steve with pity in her eyes. "You actually think you have a chance at getting her? Sure, I want to see her out of that house as much as you, but no one is going to give her to someone like you!"

"Someone like me? What do you mean by that?"

"You can't take care of a child! Your job is too dangerous for starters. Plus, you work inconsistent hours. How do you plan on finding a babysitter at three in the morning?"

"You'll be there!" Steve tried to argue.

Amy simply shook her head in disagreement. "No, I won't. Face it - Jasmine is better off without either one of us. You ruined her life just as much as I did. She deserves a couple who aren't jinxes."

Steve had nothing left to argue. He knew she was right even though it hurt to admit it. Even though he was out of arguments, he still wasn't ready to give up.

"If we love each other enough...we can get through this," he choked out.

"I don't think love is the solution to everything. In fact, sometimes it's the curse. If it weren't for love...we wouldn't be in this position."

Steve's heart sank to his feet. As frustrating as this whole ordeal had been, he still believed that love could win out in the end, and he was saddened by the fact that Amy didn't feel the same way.

He looked around the pool. The obstructions were once again blocking his path. He was desperate enough to convince Amy that everything could be good again that he decided to hell with getting wet and jumped into the water.

Amy gasped. "You just jumped into death!" she screamed.

"If you're going, then you're taking me with you," he told her as he slicked back his hair.

"But you can't go!" she protested.

"Why not? You seem to think it's okay."

"But...but..." she stammered. "You have something to live for!"

"Yet you don't? If you don't, then I don't."

Amy stood on the side of the pool and stared at him. "You won't let me go unless you go too? I don't get that."

"Love. It's what love is all about. We share each other's pain just as much as we share each other's joy. As crazy as it probably sounds to you, I'm more miserable with my own happiness than I am with you and your pain."

She gave him a curious look. "You'd rather be miserable with me than happy by yourself...that's what you're saying?"

He simply nodded. "If at peace is where you want to be, and if this water will bring it to you...then I'm going too because life outside this pool is more than I can handle anymore."

Amy's whole demeanor softened. Her tears dried and a slight smile came across her lips. At the same time, the coffins and thorny bushes disappeared. Steve smiled, knowing that he'd finally gotten to her.

She looked down at the water and gingerly put her toe in. "I'm not going to drown? That was my original plan," she told Steve.

He shook his head. "I wouldn't let you. I'm not giving up on you...so don't give up on me."

She took a deep breath. "She won't get me in there?"

"She can't touch you," he assured her.

Just as she moved to jump in, Margaret shouted from behind her. "Where do you think you're going?!"

Amy swung around. "Home! I'm going home! And there's nothing you can do to stop me!"

"You can't leave me!" Margaret screamed. "I'm a star! No one leaves a star!"

At that line, Steve's eyes got wide and he tried to call to Amy and have her quickly jump into the water, but it was too little too late. The sound of a gunshot rang through the air. The target of the shot fell back-first into the pool and into Steve's arms. A stream of red flowed out away from the body.

Amy opened her eyes and looked over at the man whose arms she was in. "This hurts," she muttered. "I don't like hurting. You should have just let me go. Let me go...let me go...let me go…"

Steve's eyes flew open. The room was dark and silent, save for the ticking of his nightstand clock. He lifted his head and looked around his room. It took him a few seconds to realize that he was there instead of in a pool in Los Angeles.

As he propped himself up on his elbows, he noticed that he'd fallen asleep with the poem in his hand. Even though he was in the dark, he looked the paper over again then turned his head to the empty side of his bed.

"Maybe you were right," was all he whispered.


	17. Chapter 17

_**Wednesday, May 15, 1974** _

"I want to see it," Jeannie told her father over coffee and breakfast in Steve's kitchen the next morning. Worried about him never waking up, Jeannie had spent the night on his couch. Mike had come over to also check on his partner early that morning.

"See what?" Mike asked, pretending not to know what she was talking about even though he had just told her about the picture of Amy and why Steve was in his current condition.

Jeannie rolled her eyes. "The picture! I want to see it."

"Now why would you want to see that?"

"You're not sure it's real, right? I want to see for myself. Maybe I can find something that proves it's fake."

"Sweetheart, I gave it to Charlie to do just that!"

"But what if he misses something? The more sets of eyes on it, the better!"

Jeannie was prepared to go several rounds with her father if necessary. She figured if she could prove to Steve that the picture was faked, then he would feel better.

"It's evidence. I can't let you see evidence!" Mike argued.

"Evidence in what? Faking a photograph isn't illegal, it's just rude."

"If it's not fake, it's evidence." Mike took a sip of coffee, content that the argument was over, but he forgot how persistent his daughter was.

Jeannie sat back and folded her arms over her chest. "You do realize that I'm going to follow you to work and bug you until you let me see it."

"You better not! Look, I know you want to help Steve, but we really do know what we're doing down there. Charlie is a very competent man."

"I'm sure he is! But I feel like I know more about Amy's mother than he does."

Mike looked at her in disbelief. "And just how do you figure that?"

"I've pieced together information from what you and Steve have said. I also had a lot of time to think last night." She paused. "She was in the theater, right?"

Mike nodded.

"There was this girl who lived down the hall from me last semester. She was a theater major and her sister was a makeup artist in Hollywood. Her sister would come and do the makeup for all the productions at ASU. You really should have seen some of the stuff that woman could pull off! At Halloween, the theater department always put on a haunted house to raise money. Mike, she made these people look like actual zombies!"

"Oh, come now! No makeup is that good," Mike uttered in disbelief.

"Well, sure, up close you could tell, but from just a few feet? They looked dead...perhaps as dead as Amy in that picture…"

Mike looked at his daughter.

"What?" she asked, a bit unnerved at the staring.

He chuckled. "I hate to admit it, but you may be on to something."

Jeannie grinned.

"I said  _may_."

"I'll take it. Do I get to see it?"

Before Mike could answer, Steve walked into the kitchen, stopping short when he saw the Stones.

"What are you two doing here?" he asked.

Jeannie leapt up from the table. "I never left! I was worried you took too many of those pills and wouldn't wake up!" She gave Steve a tight hug.

"I took one; you saw the bottle. It wasn't empty." Steve acted like Jeannie's concern was ridiculous. He quickly squirmed out of her embrace and walked to the coffee pot.

Jeannie shook her head. "It may not have been empty, but that doesn't mean I knew how many you took."

Steve, pouring himself a cup of coffee, turned to his partner. "And she got you all worried too, didn't she?"

"Buddy Boy, I've been worried about you for a month," Mike answered, leaning back in his chair. "It just gets a little worse every day."

"Well, you can stop worrying, because there's nothing left to worry about."

Jeannie rolled her eyes. "Not this again." She sighed and walked to the counter where Steve was standing. "Look, Mike told me what happened, so I get the denial. It's the first stage of grief, and I can't even imagine the grief that photo must have given you. But you just seem…"

"Seem what, Jeannie?

Jeannie paused before quietly saying, "In too much denial."

Steve looked to Mike in exasperation. Mike simply shook his head. "I tend to agree with her."

"Serious….in denial of what?!"

Jeannie bugged out her eyes. "That Amy is alive...or that you should still look for her! I don't get it...no one else has given up on her, and you of all people should be the last one who does! Why have you?"

"She gave up on me! She more or less told me so," he snapped.

Both Stones were taken aback, not just by the words, but also by the attitude behind them.

"She...she told you?" Mike finally managed to utter.

Steve nodded and took a drink of his coffee. "Last night. She told me to let her go - that she's better off without me."

"Steve, that was just a dream," Jeannie offered. "Your subconscious is trying to make sense of reality, and the stress is manifesting itself as a bad dream. That's all it was!"

Steve shook his head and took a seat at the table. "No...it was a message. She was telling me to just let her go and move on. So...I am. I'm moving on."

Jeannie looked him straight in the eyes and said, "You know...I could smack you."

"Jeannie…" Mike scolded.

"No, Mike, let me finish. Letting go, huh? That's what you think it is? Well let me tell you something, Mister. It's giving up, plain and simple! You just don't want to try hard enough to find her! You want to take the easy way out just so your pain goes away! To hell with anyone else's feelings! You just don't want anything that's slightly inconvenient for you!" By the time she was finished, Jeannie was screaming.

At first, Mike wanted to stop her, but the more she said, the more he sat back and let her continue. He knew what her plan was with the tirade, and he hoped to God it worked.

Steve bolted upright. "You have no idea what you're even talking about! I am not giving up on anything! She gave up on me!"

"Did she stand here and say that to your face?! I don't think so! No...you just can't handle the stress anymore." She got close to his face and said, "You're weak."

Mike made a face in disbelief that his daughter actually went there.

"You want all the pleasure and none of the pain. The minute a girl becomes too much to handle, she's out the door and you're on to the next!"

"You have no idea how much pain I went through for her!" Steve growled.

"But there was a limit? Guess you and I have a different vision of love then, because to me, you would go through Hell and back for the one you loved. Maybe everyone was right about you guys. Just a fling...like always with you."

Mike could feel that final knife Jeannie drove into Steve, but he could see that it did have an impact.

After a stare down, Steve finally sat back down and sighed. "She gave up on me," he muttered quietly.

This time, Mike took over the conversation. "You don't know that, Buddy Boy. I talked to Lenny yesterday, and he told me pretty much everything he knew about people like Margaret. They can be very tricky and manipulative! Anything to get what they want...even faking a death."

Mike paused to gather his thoughts. "The one thing Lenny told me was the biggest threat in this is rejection and abandonment. Margaret probably thinks Amy has rejected her and is abandoning her for you. Lenny says that people with Borderline are overly sensitive to rejection, and they can be very aggressive about it. He thinks Margaret probably thinks that Amy is all she has left, so she's not about to let her go to just anyone. She sees you as a major threat to her plan, so she's doing whatever it takes to eliminate you. Threats, lies...nothing is off limits. She created this war with you in the hope that you will just surrender."

Mike took Steve's hands in his. "Don't surrender until we're a hundred percent sure we've lost!"

Steve looked up from the table and into Mike's eyes. "You don't think we have already?"

Mike shook his head. "Not by a long shot. This case...it's not a normal abduction. I can't tell you the number of times Drake has said that to me. He believes, as do I and Lenny, that Amy is worth far more to Margaret alive than she is dead."

Jeannie nodded. "That makes sense. What would she have if Amy were also gone? Nothing, and I'm sure that's not her goal."

Steve managed to nod in agreement.

"We just need to figure out where Margaret would feel comfortable taking her that's hidden enough away that she would think we can't find it," Mike added.

Steve looked up at his partner. "We  _can't_  find it."

"Thanks for the reminder, smart aleck. I think we will though, and soon."

Jeannie turned to her father. "You guys have a plan?"

Mike nodded. "I think the key to piecing this puzzle together is in Nebraska."

"Nebraska?" both Steve and Jeannie said in unison.

"Yeah. That's where all this mess started. I'm confident that if we go back to Margaret's childhood, we'll find Amy."

Steve just stared in disbelief at Mike.

"You think she's in Nebraska?" Jeannie asked her father.

"More sure that she's there than in California. Every law enforcement agency between here and LA has been looking for her and no one has seen a thing."

"That doesn't make sense, Mike," Steve said.

"Why not?"

"You heard what Lenny said about her life there. It was terrible, which is probably why she ran away! Not even someone like her would return to the one place you felt the most miserable in. Besides, there's no one left there."

"You don't know that. We haven't been able to find too much on her family to know who else was around. I really believe the key to this mess is there, and I'm going to try and convince Rudy today to send me out there."

Steve just shook his head.

"What?" Mike asked.

"You'll be chasing ghosts through the darkness," Steve told him.

"Explain," Mike uttered.

"You're going into this blindly and trying to get answers from dead people. All you're going to end up with is ghosts and darkness. No answers...no light."

Steve stood up, put his coffee cup on the counter, and went to leave the kitchen. "Maybe you all should just move on too," he said as he left the room.

Mike turned to Jeannie. "Yes."

"Yes what?"

"Yes, you can see the picture. Anything to prove to him that he's wrong!"


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea why the formatting is all messed up now. Sorry about that.

_**Wednesday, May 15, 1974** _

Jeannie sat at her father's desk with a magnifying glass. She'd been there for half an hour looking at the photograph. Charlie had only managed to find out that it was indeed authentic, but not where it might have been taken. Nothing in the background pinpointed a location, and the developing was done with chemicals and paper that could have been purchased anywhere in the United States, but Jeannie was bound and determined to find something that proved Amy was wearing makeup.

"What exactly are you looking for?" Mike asked her, wondering how she could tell if someone was covered in makeup or not.

"Oh, men," she chuckled as she continued to look through the glass. "If there's one thing we ladies have over you fellas, it's an intimate knowledge of cosmetics."

Mike shook his head. "What?"

She looked up at her father. "Have you ever looked at a painting up close?"

Mike just sort of shrugged.

"Well, putting on foundation is kind of like painting with very light colors. If the paint isn't much darker than the canvas, it's harder to tell if you missed any spots. You know, places where there's no paint."

Mike started to understand. "So you're looking for some place on her body where they missed with the makeup."

"Yes, Sir," she said as she went back to her task.

"But that makeup is darker than what you put on. A mistake would surely show up, wouldn't it?"

"Maybe they were in a hurry. I mean, she could have woken up at any second, no?"

Mike nodded. "Depends on what Margaret drugged her with. If she's willing to use PCP on her own daughter, I can't imagine what else she would try."

Norm came to the door. "You got a second?" he asked Mike.

Mike waved him in and Norm walked through the door, closing it behind him.

"I got something interesting," he said to his superior. He then looked at Jeannie. "What's she doing?"

"Proving Amy's alive," she answered.

"Oh, man, I hope you do. That one's a mess," he said, pointing out toward Steve, who was sitting at his desk.

"What do you have?" Mike asked.

"Yesterday, before that came," Norm explained, pointing at the photograph, "Mark got a call. He made it sound like he was talking to his girlfriend or something, but I found the whole thing suspicious. So I went down to Communications and found out where the call came from. It was from a payphone at the corner of 16th and Potrero. Now you can't tell me a girlfriend was calling from a random payphone."

Mike wasn't sure what to think. "Okay, so what's your plan then?"

"I'm gonna tail Holloway."

Mike's jaw dropped. "You're gonna tail Holloway? How exactly do you expect to get away with that? You don't have the wardrobe for it!"

Jeannie snickered.

"Oh ye of little faith. I didn't say I was gonna do the following. I hired it out."

Mike shook his head. "I don't think I really wanna know. Just tell me if you ever find anything."

Norm playfully saluted and left the office.

Mike's phone rang. "Stone," he answered. He listened for a while, told the person on the other end that they would be there shortly, and hung up.

Steve appeared at his door. "You're wasting your time, you know," he told Jeannie.

"Not if I find something I'm not," she sassed back.

Mike grabbed his coat and hat. "You don't have time to worry about it anyway. We have a case," he said to his partner as he turned him around and pushed him out the door.

As Steve was grabbing his jacket, Mike noticed Mark sitting at his desk. "Mark, grab your coat. You're coming with us," he said.

Steve swung around, shocked. "What? Why?" he asked.

"Experience," he told Steve, though the real reason had little to do with that. Mike wanted to keep an eye on the young inspector himself.

Mark was ecstatic. He leapt up and thanked Mike for the opportunity. Mike just nodded and pushed both the inspectors out the door.

* * *

The ride to Sea Cliff was painfully quiet. With Mark in the back seat, Steve didn't feel like conversing. He was also trying to bury the anxiety he was feeling, which was turning into a full-time job. The closer they got to the crime scene, the worse Steve felt. All he could think about was the last time he'd been in Sea Cliff - to interview Janice Duncan. That led him to thinking about Jasmine and how he hadn't heard from her in so long. He even tried calling himself, but he was always met with a never-ending ring. Now, being back where it had all started, he was finding himself fighting his worst fears.

Much to his, and Mike's, chagrin, the crime scene was kitty corner from the Duncan house. That mansion was  
the first, and about only, thing Steve saw as he got out of the car. Mike watched his partner stare at the house as  
if it were going to start speaking to him. As worried as Mike was about Steve's behavior, it was little signs like  
this that showed Steve still cared.

"I see they put it up for sale," Mike said in an effort to draw Steve back to reality.

"Whatever happened to all her stuff?" Steve wondered out loud.

"Hmm?"

Steve looked in Mike's eyes. "All her possessions. Clothes, toys...all she went to Arizona with was what little  
she had in her suitcase."

"I don't know, Buddy Boy. I suppose it's all still in there. Probably being sold with the house if it is. I don't know  
what happens in a situation like that." Mike gently patted his partner's shoulder.

"Like it never mattered…" Steve muttered.

"What never mattered?"

"Her life. Most children hold their possessions near and dear to them. I know I did...what little I had in  
comparison. But it still matters!"

"Buddy Boy, now is not the time to sort all that out. Hell, she might not even care about the stuff in there! When  
you and Amy get her back, I bet she'll be so grateful just to have the two of you, she won't care what she's  
surrounded by!"

"If," Steve said.

Mike walked around to face Steve. "When, Steve. When."

The two just looked at each other until Mark cleared his throat and interrupted. "Are we going to do some work  
here, or…?"

"Come on, Buddy Boy, let's go help someone else," Mike said, pushing Steve toward the gated house.

As Steve passed Mark, he gave the new man a dirty look. His interruption of Steve's moment was not lost on the  
seasoned inspector. The dirty look was not lost on Mark.

The three men walked into the house and were quickly briefed by the first responding officers.

"The caller, Miss Jodie Delfino," the officer said as he pointed to a cute, well-dressed brunette in her twenties  
who was standing by the patio doors, "claims that her mother shot her sister after an argument about the sister's  
fiancé."

Mike shook his head. Domestic squabbles were near the top of his list of least favorite homicides. "Where's the  
mother?"

"In the kitchen. The victim is outside. She was in the pool, but I imagine she's out by now."

Steve heard the word 'pool' and jumped. "Did you say pool?"

The officer nodded. "Probably not my place to assume, but it looks like the vic was running away from the  
house when her mother fired the shot. She fell into the pool. That's what it looks like anyway."

Mike thanked the officer and then gave his partners their assignment. "I'll talk to the mother. Why don't you two  
interview the sister and look at the body?"

Steve and Mark nodded, though Steve clenched his jaw. There was nothing he wanted to do less than be  
anywhere near a man who might be trying to hang him by proxy.

Mike walked off toward the kitchen, and the other two headed to the patio.

"I take the lead," Steve told Mark in no unspoken terms. Mark rolled his eyes behind Steve's back but knew he  
really shouldn't make waves yet. When it came to working with Steve, silent observation was key. He couldn't  
do anything that might tip off Steve to his behind-the-scenes work.

"Miss Delfino?" Steve asked the sister as they got to the patio door.

Staring at her feet, she nodded behind a carefully placed tissue. Turning her head toward Steve, she looked him  
up and down as he introduced himself and Stilwell and asked if they could talk. Liking what she saw, Jodie  
Delfino suddenly burst into tears.

"Oh, God, it was awful!" she cried. She then got close to Steve and placed her head on his shoulder. "The  
blood...the screaming…" Her next move was to throw her arms around him.

Without hesitation, Steve did what came naturally and reciprocated the embrace. He repeated that everything  
would be okay in an effort to calm the girl down.

The person not calming down was Mark Stilwell. On one hand, he couldn't believe that Steve was hugging a  
possible suspect, especially in the middle of his IA investigation. On the other, he felt like Steve was cheating on  
Amy. Mark had never met Amy and knew nothing about her, but he suddenly felt, while watching this sick  
display, that he needed to fight for her. _She could very well be alive_ , he told himself, _yet here's her boyfriend_  
_embracing another woman._ It was morally against everything Mark stood for.

All he could see was red...and green. _If she needs a shoulder to cry on, why Keller's? Why not mine? I'm a good-looking_  
_guy too - even more so. I can ooze charm and charisma, and I'm sure as hell going farther in my career_  
_than a jerk like Keller is. I'm the one the ladies should be falling over! I'm the single one! I have my head_  
_screwed on straight!_

Steve finally pushed the girl off him. "Do you think you can tell us what happened?" he asked softly.

Jodie took a few breaths and nodded. "Lanie came home early this morning."

Mark decided that Steve had done enough talking, so he jumped in and took over the questioning. "And Lanie  
is…?"

Jodie answered while still looking at Steve. "My sister. The dead girl."

Steve got his notepad out of his jacket while Mark continued. "She lives here?"

Jodie nodded. "She was out all night with Marty. That's her fiancé. Mom and Dad hate Marty - always have."

Before Steve could say anything, Mark continued his questioning. Steve let out an aggravated breath.  
"Why did they hate him?"

"Because they said he was into drugs. He was a hood. Truth is, he was just from the wrong side of the tracks as  
they say. He's from Hunters Point, and well...you know…the people there are...not Sea Cliff people." Jodie let  
out a slight chuckle.

Both Steve and Mark gave her a look, as if to shame her for her elitist attitude.

She backtracked. "But Marty was a decent guy! He was a hell of a lot nicer than some of the la la's and plastics  
in this neighborhood. He was cultured. Knew what was what in the world." She then smiled at Steve. "I imagine  
you're like that."

Steve chuckled and simply asked if Marty had a last name.

"La la's? Plastics?" Mark asked.

Jodie rolled her eyes as she turned to him. "La la's...turkeys...idiots. Plastics are fake people - like Ken and  
Barbie. What rock did you just crawl out from under?"

Steve interrupted the conversation about how out of touch Stilwell was. "What happened after she got home?"

"Mom was up waiting for her. Lanie tried lying - saying that she was out with friends - but the whole  
neighborhood heard Marty's motorcycle pull away. Mom and Lanie got into a fight about him."

"What was the fight about?" Steve asked.

"Same thing it was always about. Marty's no good for you. He's a druggie. He can't support you. Both she and  
Dad had this other guy in mind for her, but Lanie wanted none of it. She started yelling that she was moving out  
and running off to somewhere with Marty. Then they started arguing about money. I tuned out then; I hate  
talking about money."

"When did the shooting occur?" Mark asked impatiently.

"I'm getting to that!" Jodie smarted back at him. She turned back to Steve before she continued.

"Lanie said something about taking some money so she and Marty could buy a house on the beach or something.  
Mom said she wasn't giving her money to be a bum on the beach. She also wasn't going to let her disrespect the  
family. They got into it about that then, and that's when Lanie tried to leave. She made it out the door and to the  
deck around the pool. That's when I heard the shot."

Jodie started losing her composure again. Mark looked at it as a lame attempt at getting more sympathy out of  
Steve.

"Did you see it or just hear it?" Steve asked.

Jodie sniffed and placed her hand on Steve's arm. Mark felt sick to his stomach, so he wandered away and  
started looking at the ground for blood droplets.

"Just heard it. I ran into the room and saw my mom with the gun in her hand. She still had it pointed at Lanie."

"And what was Lanie doing?"

Jodie walked around Steve and led him out the patio doors. "She sort of staggered - you know, like she was  
drunk. Then she fell into the pool."

Jodie looked at Mark. "What are you doing?"

He looked up at Steve. "This is the path she took." He pointed at the ground and started walking toward the  
pool. "Here's the first drop. They progressively get bigger the closer to the pool you get. Then, bam." He pointed  
at the pool.

Steve walked away from the two and looked toward the pool. It looked eerily like the pool in his dream. As he  
got closer to the edge, he saw a red tint to the water, which reminded him of the end of his dream as Amy lay  
dying in his arms. He stood mesmerized by the similarity of it all.

"Keller?" Mark said. "Keller?" He shook Steve's shoulder.

Steve shook his head and turned toward Mark, who was standing by the body that lay on the ground.

"Are you with us here?" Mark asked, a hint of annoyance in his voice.

Jodie was standing next to Steve. She turned away from Mark and whispered, "Your partner is a jackass."

Steve smirked. "You don't know the half of it," he whispered back. He then crouched down to the body under  
the sheet.

Pulling the sheet back, he saw another similar scene - a wet brunette who was the same shade of dead Amy was  
in the picture. In reality, the girl did not resemble Amy much except for her hair color, but all Steve could see  
was Amy. Amy - dead from a gunshot wound inflicted upon her by her angry mother. She wanted to leave - to  
run off and find happiness with a man she loved. Now neither girl would.

Jodie tried her best to look at her sister, but her efforts led her to running off and throwing up in the yard. A  
young uniformed officer went to her side to check on her. Finding him just as cute as Steve, she feigned  
weakness and had the man help her back into the house. Mark glared at them the entire time.

He rolled his eyes and looked back down at Steve. "So, was she shot in the back like they say?"

Steve didn't hear him; he was too far gone into his own sorrow. Everywhere Steve looked, all he saw was his  
own life and the dream he'd had the night before. Lanie Delfino was Amy Johnson. He was Marty Creiger. Mrs.  
Delfino was Margaret. The more he looked at Lanie, the further from reality he strayed. He reached down and  
took Lanie's cold right hand.

"I am so sorry," he half-whispered.

Mark found that response to his question odd, but instead of asking again, he stayed quiet and listened. If Steve  
was cracking up, he wanted a front row seat.

He watched as Steve again apologized to the corpse, but this time he called it Amy. He then poured his heart out,  
blaming himself for her current condition. Mark took in every word; it was just what he'd need to bring Steve  
down.

Before this moment, his goal wasn't to bring the inspector down but to merely punish him for his wrongdoings.  
It would be a good show of how important it was to follow the rules. But now the goal was changing. As Mark  
watched Steve lose his grip on reality, he realized that Holloway was right - Steve was becoming dangerous. He was clearly on the edge and not thinking straight, two things that would not only ruin cases, but could cause harm for any other officer around.

Mark came from a long line of peace officers. His brother was a homicide detective with the LAPD. His father  
was a captain and his mother a police woman. The SFPD commissioner was his godfather. His grandfather was  
a robbery inspector. His great-grandfather was an officer who saved lives during the 1906 earthquake. Every one  
of those people had been lauded for their hard work and dedication to the profession - especially his brother.  
Mark had lived in his brother's shadow all his life. Nothing he did was ever as good as what his brother did.  
Mark could have found a cure for the common cold, but his brother still would have done something better.

When Mark decided to enter the academy, his father tried to talk him out of it, saying that his "talents" would be  
better served in an office job that was less dangerous. He tried to cover it by saying that he was just worried for  
Mark's safety, but Mark knew better. If that were the case, his brother would have gotten the same speech. He  
knew that his father just didn't trust him to succeed in the "family business." It was the resulting anger that  
pushed Mark to go from beat cop and get into the Bureau of Inspectors; he wanted more than anything to prove  
his father wrong.

Before him laid the perfect opportunity. If he could get rid of the wonder boy of inspectors and take his place,  
his father would finally see that he's not a complete screw up. He would finally get the love and recognition he  
deserved.

While Mark contemplated the future, Mike came out on the patio. He didn't speak to Mark; he simply watched  
and listened to Steve break down in front of the victim. He didn't have time to react to it though, because Debbie  
Delfino, the youngest of the three Delfino sisters, came running out onto the patio. It was hard not to notice as  
she came screaming through the patio doors. She ran toward where her sister was lying dead on the ground, but  
Mark got in her way and grabbed her around the waist. The teenager kicked and screamed and demanded to see  
her sister, but Mark was not letting her anywhere near the body.

Soon, poor Debbie ran out of anger and her despair came through. It was very similar to how Jodie reacted when  
Steve introduced himself. However, when Mark decided to make this situation mirror the other, he was shut  
down. Debbie didn't want his hug, his shoulder, or his sympathy. All she wanted was him away from her. She  
ended up slapping him to get him to back off.

"Inspector!" Mike scolded.

Debbie approached Mike. "Did you see that? He tried to molest me!"

Mike called over another uniformed officer and told Debbie he'd speak with her in a minute. The officer took the  
teenager away from the scene and back toward the house. Mike turned his attention back to Mark.

"She would have ruined the crime scene!" Mark stammered.

Mike simply kept glaring at him.

Mark got defensive. "Hey, I didn't do anything he didn't do first!" he pleaded, pointing to Steve.

Mike wasn't a fan of people who immediately tried blaming their mistakes on someone else. "Go wait in the  
car," Mike calmly told him.

"But I…" Mark tried to protest, but Mike wasn't having it.

"Go wait in the car!" he said more sternly.

Mark clenched his fists and did as he was told. All the way to the car he muttered about how unfair he was being  
treated by everyone.

Mike then turned his attention back to Steve who was still holding vigil next to Lanie Delfino. He knelt down on  
Lanie's left side, across from his partner.

"It's not her, you know," he said calmly and softly.

Steve kept looking at Lanie. "It could be. She could have drown in a pool. You saw the photo."

"But it isn't! Look at the girl! This is not Amy! The circumstances are all different!"

Steve looked up at Mike. "No they're not! This woman's mother shot her for trying to run off with a man she  
didn't like, right?"

Mike nodded reluctantly.

"How is that any different then?" Steve threw the sheet back over Lanie, stood up, and quickly walked away.

Mike just sighed and hung his head. There was no getting through to him.


	19. Chapter 19

**_Wednesday, May 15, 1974_ **

A small woman in a track suit wandered around the park taking pictures.  It was typical tourist behavior, and no one thought anything of it - not even the middle-aged man in the custom-tailored Brooks Brothers suit.  She was okay with that though, just as long as she didn’t lose him.  

So far she had followed him all over the city trying to get his picture, but the setting had never been right.  She was hoping that Dolores Park was her ideal scene.  In the past three hours they’d been to Coit Tower, Twin Peaks Summit, and Union Square on unrelated business, and she was starting to wonder if he’d ever complete his task.  She was a very patient person, but this guy was testing her nerves.  

Then, as she was taking pictures of some park wildlife, she noticed he’d stopped by a phone booth.  He didn’t go in, but he didn’t leave either.  He stood in the vicinity pretending to read the latest issue of the _Chronicle_.  She’d seen this behavior a hundred times and it was always a show.  The reader's eyes never stayed on the paper for more than a few seconds; they were always looking up for whatever their owner was waiting for. Instead of making a call like she figured he would, she now guessed that he was waiting for a caller to come to him.  

She liked the sights of nature, but she also liked the sounds, so slowly she got closer to the phone booth and her man.  Taking a seat on the grass behind the phone booth in a spot that was inconspicuous but still within earshot, she got into a backpack she’d been carrying on her back.  Out came a small tape recorder which she set to begin recording.  The recorder went back into the bag and its microphone was set on top.  Then she lay back on the grass and waited for something to happen.

Five minutes later, she finally got what she’d been waiting for all afternoon.  A younger man in a cheap suit approached her man.  She grinned a sly grin, reached into her bag, and flipped on the recorder.  She then picked up her camera and started snapping.

“You look like you’ve had better days,” Holloway greeted Mark.  “Heard you got in trouble with the lieutenant.”

“Why am I here?” he snapped.

“Because you went out on a case with Keller earlier, didn’t you?”

“So what?”

“So what…”  Holloway snickered.  “I would have thought we’d been through this enough by now.  You are to report to me everything that goes on with him.  Every single thing you see comes back to me.”

“Maybe I didn’t see anything today,” Mark replied as he folded his arms across his chest.

Holloway snickered again.  “What’s your game here, Stilwell?  You think you can bring him down on your own?  Is that it?”

“Look, Holloway…”

Holloway interrupted.  “I know all about you, you know?  All about your past...your family...how you’re daddy’s little disappointment.  He didn’t want you to become a cop, did he?”

"That's not true!” Mark quickly spit out.  “Everyone in my family is a cop.  It was just natural that I became one too."  He was trying not to show any emotion, but he was failing.  Instead of looking the sergeant in the eyes, he looked down at the ground.  He also shifted his weight several times.

“You're a terrible liar.  Truth is, your father tried to get you flunked out of the academy!  That’s gotta hurt.  Didn’t get it accomplished because at least the instructors are honest men, but damn.  So, what, you figure if you become a one-man army that cleans up the department, you’ll finally impress your old man?”

Mark continued to look at the ground.  

“You want to prove to him that you can be just as good a cop as your brother?” Holloway asked, putting his hand on Mark’s shoulder.

“I _am_ just as good as him.  No, I’m better!” Mark snapped, finally looking Holloway in the eyes.

“You’re not gonna do it alone.  You take whatever you have to Olsen, and he’ll laugh you right out of his office.  He’s on Keller’s side.  You need me and my position to bring him down,” Holloway said very matter-of-factly.

Mark tried to protest but was cut off again.  “You know this!  You’re just a tiny fish in a large barrel.  I, on the other hand, am a big fish, and I get things done.  Like it or not, you need to stick with me.  You want his job, don’t you?”

Mark sighed.  “You were right - he is dangerous.  The city can’t afford to have someone like him solving their murders.  Everyone is much better off with me than they are with him.”

“Glad you’ve finally come to you senses,” Holloway told him, patting him on the shoulder.  “So what happened to change your mind?”

Mark stayed quiet for a moment as he tried to find just the right words.  “He’s...losing it.”

“Oh?”

“He started talking to the victim as if she were his girlfriend.  He was apologizing to the corpse for letting her down and not protecting her from her mother.  I mean...he just kept apologizing and telling her he loved her.”

Holloway grinned mischievously.  “But there was nothing going on.”  He began to laugh.  “I love how he just keeps putting nails in his own coffin.  It’s satisfying.  Look, I want you to write down everything he said and did.  You know, for the record.  Before you know it, you’ll be sitting in his desk instead of him.”

Mark nodded and Holloway started wandering away.  “Oh, and let me give you a little piece of advice,” he said, turning back.  “I know you want his job and all, but being jealous isn’t going to get you there.”

“What are you talking about?  I’m not jealous of Keller!”

“Trying to hit on the sister of the deceased?  Really...I’m pretty shocked at you for that.  You don’t want to end up like him, do you?  Stick to marrying the job, not the suspects.  Stone will like you better.”  At that, Holloway turned and walked away.

Mark stood by the phone booth for a while, but soon he too took off.  The lady didn’t bother to follow either one; she got what she needed.  She packed up her stuff and headed to get her photos developed.

* * *

Jeannie squealed in delight.  “Yes!” she exclaimed without taking her eyes off the picture.  “I knew I’d find something!”

She looked up and remembered that she was alone which disappointed her.  She wanted to share her good news, but now she was going to have to wait.  She dejectedly set the magnifying glass down on the desk and sat back.  Her stomach growled reminding her that she’d been sitting in her father’s office for quite some time.  She looked at her watch and decided she could leave and get something to eat and still make it back in time to share her discovery.  Carefully tucking the picture into a desk drawer, she quickly scrawled out a note for Mike and took off.

An hour and a half later, Jeannie wandered into Homicide and saw a couple solemn-looking inspectors.  “Bad case?” she asked, standing outside her father’s open office door.

“Don’t even ask,” Mike muttered from behind his desk.  

Jeannie looked over at Steve.  His face told her that he was doing a hell of a job trying not to get emotional.  “Well, forget all of it, because I have good news!”

She walked into Mike’s office and around the desk.  “Steve, get in here!” she called out as she took the picture out of its drawer.  

Steve reluctantly stood up and wandered slowly into Mike’s office.  When he saw that Jeannie had the picture in her hand, he turned around and tried to leave.

“Oh no you don’t!” she said, running back around the desk and grabbing his arm.  “You’ll want to see this.”  She yanked him back in the room and over to the desk.   

Setting the picture down on the desk, she announced her news.

"I have found the smoking gun!"

"The what?" Steve asked.

"The proof!  She's alive!"

"You found a missing spot?" Mike asked with hope in his voice.

"I did!"

"What are you two talking about?" Steve asked, finding them both slightly obnoxious.

Jeannie looked Steve square in the eyes.  "I found a spot of normal-colored skin.  I found a place this crazy woman missed with her makeup!  I proved that Amy is alive!"  

She then looked over at her father.  "It was pretty obvious really.  I don't know what took me so long."

"Where is it, Sweetheart?" Mike asked.

She pointed at Amy's right ear.  Mike narrowed his eyes and bent down closer to the desk.  Still not seeing anything, he reached into his pocket, grabbed his glasses, and then resumed his search.

Steve shook his head.

Jeannie noticed his doubt.  “Be Mr. Negativity all you want, but when a person dies and their skin turns that weird shade of pale, all their skin does that.  All of it!  There is a place on her right ear that is as healthy-colored as you and me.”

Steve scoffed.  “Sure there is - that’s why Mike can see it so well,” he said, alluding to his partner’s difficulty in seeing what Jeannie was pointing to.

“Oh, give me that magnifying glass,” Mike barked, annoyed at Steve’s attitude.  

Jeannie handed him the glass and he again concentrated on the picture.

“See, at the top of her ear - on the inside nearest her head.”

Mike concentrated where his daughter told to him to look.  After a minute, he smiled.  “Well I’ll be damned,” he muttered.

Steve stared at him in disbelief.  “You actually see something?”

Mike answered by handing him the photo and magnifying glass.  “See for yourself.”

Steve, not really wanting to look at the picture again for any reason, hesitated, but took it just the same.  Slowly he looked where Jeannie had said the evidence was.

Jeannie watched his face for any positive sign.  After a minute, she thought she saw a slight smile develop.  However, it wasn’t quite the reaction she had in mind.

As he slowly lowered himself into a chair, she asked, “Do you see it?”

He simply nodded.

“I...well, I thought you’d be more excited,” she said.  “I mean, this is good news, right?”

Steve nodded again.  “Yeah...I guess.”

“What do you mean you guess?  Don’t tell me you had a sudden change of heart about her!  Steven Keller, if you break that girl’s heart, so help me…”

Mike stopped her mid-sentence.  “Sweetheart, let the man answer before you get all riled up.”

Jeannie folded her arms over her chest and shut her mouth.

Steve sat for a bit and stared at the photograph.  “It’s just that…”  He looked up at Mike and Jeannie.  “How many times during this case have we gotten our hopes up only to have them dashed?  We get a lead that goes nowhere.  We get evidence that does us no good.  She may have been alive when this was taken, but is she now?  We don’t know!  And even if she is, we can’t find her, so what good is it all?”

Jeannie and Mike looked at each other - both unsure what to say.

“I’m just tired of being hopeful,” he said in barely a whisper.

“I can understand that,” Jeannie said quietly.

Mike looked at her in complete disbelief.  He almost asked her why, but she caught on to the look he was giving her and offered an explanation before he could ask.

“Look at the world like a pessimist.  They feel that if you don’t get your hopes up, when the thing you want to happen doesn’t, the blow isn’t severe because you already didn’t expect it to happen.  It’s saving yourself from heartache.”

Mike shrugged.  He may have understood the theory, but he didn’t subscribe to it.

“Say you really get your hopes up for a job - so much so that you can actually see yourself at it.  Then you get the call that you weren’t hired.  It hurts, right?  Well, what if you didn’t figure you’d get the job anyway?  The fall isn’t as hard,” she explained.

Steve nodded.  “If I don’t think she’s alive…”  He got too choked up to continue, so he looked down at his lap instead.

Mike shook his head.  “What a terrible way to live though!  Always assuming the worst will happen.  You never expect anything good in life just so you won’t be hurt?  Sounds like slow death to me.”

Jeannie tried to explain further, but Mike cut her off.

“I understand it, I really do, but...well...maybe I think too much like a cop, but if there’s no evidence to back up your claim that the worst will happen, then why prepare for it?  Why prepare for anything?  Take life as it comes.”  

He looked at Steve who wasn’t looking at him.  “Do you really like being miserable?  I get that you don’t want to hear that Amy is dead.  Trust me; I understand that pain better than you.  But look what that frame of mind is doing to you!  You drink too much and eat too little.  You have to take someone else’s medication to sleep through the night.  You walk around like a zombie and only half do your job.  All that’s doing is feeding Holloway!  

And you know the reason for all this?  It’s not worry; I can tell you that!  It’s because you already killed her!  You have it stuck in your head that assuming she’s dead will make you feel better.  Is it?  Do you feel better than if you held on to the hope that she’s alive?”  

Mike folded his hands on his lap.  He looked at Steve, who looked like a little boy who had just been scolded for stealing cookies.

“I’m sorry for getting on you like that, Buddy Boy, but...you need to snap out of it and focus.  Don’t do it for me, or for Jeannie...you don’t even have to do it for yourself.  But for God’s sake, do it for that poor women that’s out there somewhere depending on you.”

Jeannie chuckled.  “Again.”

Steve finally looked up at the two Stones.  “Again?”

“Yeah.  That’s how this whole thing started, isn’t it?  You saved her from that guy in the cemetery,” Jeannie told him.

Steve scoffed.  “Great example.  I got her shot.  What will I do now?”

Mike opened his mouth to scold Steve for continuing with his defeatist attitude, but Steve put his hand up to stop him.

“I know, I know.  Think positive.”  He paused before adding, “She’d tell me the same thing.”

Mike chuckled.  “So then do it!  We’re not out for the count just yet!  We still have Nebraska.  I would bet my pension that our answer is there.  Lenny thinks that Margaret will go someplace where she felt safe or happy or something - somewhere she felt in control.  He believes that Los Angeles would leave Amy too much control, but as far as we know, Nebraska would be unfamiliar territory for Amy, leaving her at Margaret’s mercy.  I have to agree with him.  Margaret probably thinks we won’t look anywhere but California.”

“She clearly doesn’t know the ingenuity of Stone and Keller then!” Jeannie said emphatically.

Steve threw up his hands in defeat.  “I don’t agree…”

Mike gave him a slightly annoyed glare.

“...but I learned long ago not to doubt your instincts, so if you think Nebraska holds our answer...then I owe it to Amy to try.”  He then chuckled.

"I told Karen that the answer to this case was in Margaret's past.  I actually believed it then."

"Then believe it now."  Mike stood up and walked around his desk and past Jeannie.  Steve stood up as well.  Mike patted the younger man on the shoulder.  He looked Steve straight in the eyes and said, “We’ll find her, I promise.”

Steve smiled a slight smile and nodded in agreement.  Whether or not he actually believed it remained to be seen.

Mike then started to head out the door.

“Where are you off to?” Jeannie asked.  

Mike, with his hand on the door handle, turned to her and Steve.  “I’m off to discuss a little trip with the boss.  This is still an official investigation, so why not get the city to send us?”

Before he could get out the door, he was stopped by Norm and a small lady in a track suit.

“Have I got something for you!” Norm boasted.

Mike stepped back into his office and let the two in the door.  Norm told his companion to put her audio equipment on Mike’s desk.

“Gentlemen, Jeannie, this is Nina.  She’s the private eye I hired to tail Holloway.”

After setting her equipment on the desk, Nina turned around and started shaking everyone’s hands.  “Investigator.  Private investigator,” she corrected.  “Norm can never seem to remember that.  A private eye is some guy in a trench coat.  I like to think I blend in better than that.”

Mike gave Norm a curious look.  “You actually did it, huh?”

“I said I would, and boy did it pay off!  Honey, show them the pictures.”

Steve eyed the sergeant.  “Honey?”

Norm turned to Steve.  “Hey, you’re not the only one with an active social life around here.”

Steve shook his head and chuckled.  Jeannie smiled at the fact that Steve seemed to actually be relaxing.

Nina got into her bag and pulled out a stack of pictures.  She handed them to Mike.

“She caught Holloway and Stilwell meeting in Dolores Park earlier,” Norm explained.

Mike and Steve looked at the photographs of the meeting by the phone.

“But what does this prove?” Steve inquired.  “All it proves is that they talked in a park.”

“True,” Norm agreed, “but Nina here didn’t just fall off the turnip truck you know!”

Nina giggled.  “I do have a few tricks up my sleeve.  I actually recorded the entire conversation, and from what Norm tells me, it’s incriminating.  Want to listen?”

Everyone in the room nodded, so Nina played the recording back for all to hear.  At the end, the room was engulfed in a stunned silence.

Steve was surprisingly the first to speak.  “If I kill them, will I have to do time?” he asked completely seriously.

Everyone looked at him in surprise, but then Norm chuckled and patted Steve on the back.  “I’ll throw in a couple bucks for a good lawyer,” he quipped.  “Though if you really are losing it, then you can claim insanity and do your time in one of the city’s fine hospitals.  We’ll come visit you in your padded room and straitjacket.”

Everyone added their own chuckle to lighten the mood.  Mike then spoke up.  “Those two have some nerve.  I hate that there are men like them in my department,” he growled.  

“That Holloway guy is pretty smarmy,” Nina added.  “After following him around all day, I can tell he thinks pretty highly of himself.”  

“Everyone in IA is like that.  Truth is, they’re in IA because they couldn’t hack it as actual cops.  They’re all jealous of those of us who can do our jobs,” Norm said.

“What are you gonna do with that?” Steve asked Mike, referring to the evidence.

“Nothing,” he replied.

“Nothing?  You have to do something!  Those two are going to get me hanged!”

“Just calm down.  When I said nothing, I meant nothing now.  I’m going to wait until a decision comes down on you.  Then if needed, I’ll use it to put nails in his coffin instead!” Mike barked, quoting Holloway in the process.  “Either way, I’ll use it against him somehow, don’t you worry.”

Nina looked at her watch.  “I hate to run, but I have a philandering husband to follow next.  One of my colleagues and I are going to take turns tailing Holloway throughout the coming days.  If we get anything else, you guys will be the first to know.”

As she headed toward the door, she shooks hands with everyone once again and then took her leave.

Norm also headed out the door followed by Mike, who asked the sergeant just how he was paying Nina for her services.

Steve started to follow, but Jeannie stopped him.

“You handled that well...like the old Steve.”

“Am I really handling this that badly?” he asked, stepping back into the room.

Jeannie shrugged.  “Hard to say really.  I mean, you’ve never been in this position before.  But it did scare me.  I think it would have scared Amy too.”

Steve leaned up against the wall next to the door.  “You’re right.  It just...I’m scared,” he admitted.  “I’m not sure I’ve ever been this scared.”

“Because you’ve never felt this strongly about someone before.  But running from the pain isn’t helping ease hers any.  She could be just as scared as you.  If you want to put an end to your pain...put an end to hers.”

Jeannie then gave Steve a hug.  This time he didn’t try to wiggle his way out.  

“You know, you were right this morning when you told me I was giving up.  It just seemed easier.”  He paused.  “You really think she’s still alive?”

Jeannie pulled out of the embrace.  “I do.  Lenny was right - she is more valuable alive.”

Steve looked up at the ceiling.  “When I first saw that picture, all I could think about was the ending of Sunset Boulevard.  Amy was killed by her crazy mother for trying to escape.  She did look wet in that photo after all!  Plus, there was that letter...she was already suicidal, and if she thought she couldn’t get away or that I was never coming to rescue her...I could see her killing herself to get away from Margaret...and to teach her a lesson.”

Steve swallowed his emotions.  “I just don’t know how strong she is right now.”

“I think she’s a lot stronger than you’re giving her credit for.  Okay, I don’t know her, but I get a sense that she’ll fight her mother tooth and nail to get back here to you and Jasmine.”

“Jasmine anyway,” Steve muttered.

“I’ve been thinking.  This isn’t a typical kidnapping.  Amy knows her kidnapper pretty well, so I could see her using her mother’s manipulations against her.  Like she knows her enemy’s moves before she makes them.  If I were in Amy’s shoes, I’d do that.  Even if I were depressed before, my survival instincts would kick in, as would my maternal instincts.  I just don’t think Amy will leave Jasmine without a mother without a fight.  My mom wouldn’t have.”

Steve smiled.  “She does love that little girl.  I guess I never thought about her need to protect her.”

“You were too busy wallowing in your own misery.  Wherever she is...she’s using you and Jasmine as strength.  You may find her a little worse for the wear, but you’ll find her alive,” Jeannie declared.  “I’d bet Mike’s pension on it.”

The two shared a laugh, both feeling more optimistic than they had in days.


	20. Chapter 20

**_Friday, May 17, 1974_ **

“I can’t believe they actually let you out,” physical therapist Tim Slater told Karen, whom he was pushing in a wheelchair at the Los Angeles International Airport.  Karen, Tim, and her sixteen year old brother Ben were there to see her parents off on a vacation to Hawaii.  The couple had been reluctant to go, given their daughter’s condition, but Karen insisted she was fine.  She needed them out of town anyway; her plans would only happen if they weren’t around.

“I wasn’t being forced to stay there; I was there voluntarily, which means I can check myself out whenever I want,” Karen reminded him.  “I have better things to do than lay in a stupid bed all day attempting to use my arm and leg.”

“Don’t you want to use that arm and leg to their full capacity though?” Tim asked her.

“Spoken like a true physical therapist,” Karen muttered.  “Look, I can do all those exercises you made me do at home.  You’ll be there to do them with me after all.  Plus, I’m saving Dad a ton of money.”

“Yeah, but…” Tim tried to argue.

“Yeah, but nothing!  I can’t work on finding Amy in that damn facility.  End of story.”

Ben, who was walking beside them, laughed.

Tim looked over at him, annoyed.  “What’s so funny?”

“If you’re gonna date her, you really need to learn how not to argue.  You’ll never win.”

“He’s right,” Karen agreed.  

Tim just sighed.  He knew she was hell-bent on finding her cousin, but he was worried she wasn’t physically up for whatever she might find in her search.

“Mike and his partner probably have enough on their plate without you getting involved and in their way,” he muttered.

Ben made a face like he fully expected to see a massacre play out right before his eyes.

“Stop the chair!” Karen blurted out.  Tim did as he was told.

Karen motioned for him to come around and face her.  The well-built, sandy blond, handsome twenty-five year old slowly made his way around the chair, rolling his eyes along the way.  He knelt down in front of his patient and girlfriend.

“Steve - his name is Steve, and I don’t know if he and Mike have anything or not because I can’t get ahold of him.  He seems to have fallen off the face of the earth.  And I am NOT talking to that woman who keeps answering!  If he’s shacked up with some floozy, I don’t want to talk to him anyway.”

“I told you you probably have the wrong number,” Ben reminded her.

“I agree.  Why haven’t you looked him up to see?” Tim added.

Karen rolled her eyes.  “You of all people should know that no sane cop is going to publish their phone number for every angry hoodlum they’ve ever arrested to see.”

“Then why don’t you let me call Mike?  He’s long overdue a call from me anyway,” Tim told her.

“Look, if Steve was right and the answer is in my mom’s past, then he and Mike aren’t going to have access to that.  Only I can get that information!”  

She leaned forward and put her hands on both sides of Tim’s face.  “I know you mean well, but you can’t stop me from doing this.”

“If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” Ben added.

Tim looked at both of them, disgruntled that he knew they were right.  “Okay, okay.  But the first sign that you’re getting in over your current abilities, you’re going back in!”

Karen sighed.  “Yes, doctor.”

* * *

 The three arrived at Karen and Ben’s Thousand Oaks home.  Karen declared Operation Find Amy officially on since Kaye was no longer there to get in her way.  For the past two weeks, Karen had tried and tried to get her mother to open up about her past, but it was met with every excuse and roadblock in the book.  The woman was not at all interested in talking about her family even if it meant saving her niece, which Karen accused her of trying to prevent.  All that did was drive a wedge between mother and daughter.  It did make Karen more determined than ever to find out what her mother was hiding though.  Now that she was in Hawaii for two weeks, Karen could attempt to accomplish her goal.

Ben had been sneaking around the house the past two weeks as much as he could without his mother knowing.  He hadn’t managed to find much, but he did find a key - that was very well-hidden - in Kaye’s nightstand.  After trying every lock he could find, Ben determined that it didn’t go to anything in their house.  It had a curious combination of letters and numbers etched into it though, so he and his friend set out to discover what it opened.   

As they entered the back patio doors, Karen looked at her brother.  “Did you and Sherlock ever find out what that key went to?”

“His name is Roger, and he thinks he’s getting close.”

Karen chuckled.  “Really?  I’d like to know how a couple of high school sophomores would manage to find out what a key goes to in a city as big as L.A.”

Tim parked Karen’s wheelchair and walked over to Ben, putting his arm around the boy’s shoulders.  “Hey, don’t discourage the ingenuity of a couple of future detectives.  Police forces all across the country could use guys like them.  Hell, they could join the FBI some day!”

“That would be so far out!” Ben said excitedly.

“Is that right?  Hmm…”  Karen sat for a moment.  “So if the police need all the help they can get, they how come you’re not calling Mike and inquiring about getting back into the academy?  You’re one of those ingenious men they need, no?”

Tim simply walked away and sat down on the couch.  “Different circumstances,” he grunted.

“How so?”

He didn’t answer right away and when he did, it wasn’t really even an answer to her question.  “I’m not ready.  My knee isn’t a hundred percent.”

Karen and Ben gave each other curious looks.  “It’s been six years.  Your knee is perfectly fine, Honey,” she told Tim.  “If it wasn’t, you wouldn't go for runs every day.”

Knowing she was right, he tried something else.  “I have a good job here.  Besides, I don’t want to go up there and leave you alone down here.”

“Aww...that sweet,” Karen cooed, but then immediately changed her tune.  “But stupid.  I’m going back to Berkeley in the fall, so your excuse is invalid.  Any other lame reason you have for totally avoiding this?”

“I’m not avoiding it!” he snapped back.  “Maybe I just don’t want to.”

She looked over at Ben and asked him to help her up and over to the couch.  With him supporting her with her good arm, she hopped on her good leg the five feet to the couch and plopped down next to her new boyfriend.

“I think I’ll go call Roger and see if he’s had any luck today,” Ben said before quickly leaving the room, fearful of the impending conversation.

Karen sat back and looked over at Tim, who was sitting forward with his elbows on his knees.  “Half of what you talk about is either getting back to San Francisco because you’re sick of L.A., or being a policeman.  You like your job, sure, but you don’t love it.  I don’t see how you could even like it, what with all the bitches and jerks you have to work with.  I hated being a patient there because of those people!  So don’t give me that ‘I don’t want to’ garbage and just admit that you’re scared to try again.”

“I am not scared!” Tim bellowed, glaring at her.  

“Bullshit!” Karen countered back.  “You’re scared that you can’t hack it anymore...or that you’ll get injured again...or...hell, I don’t know why!  But it’s not lack of desire.”

“Don’t act like you know me so well.  We’ve known each other for two weeks.”  Tim turned his head and looked straight ahead; he hoped if he didn't look at Karen, she'd drop the subject.

She glared at him for a moment but soon started laughing.  

“What’s so funny?” Tim asked.

“You know how we were talking the other day about Amy, and you started spouting off all these theories about my aunt and the case in general?”

Tim nodded, unsure of where this was going.

“Well, I started thinking about how you remind me of Steve, and not just because you’re both cops or that you both know Lieutenant Stone.”

“I’m not a cop,” he interrupted.  

“You will be,” she answered confidently.  “Anyway, now we’re sitting here arguing about how well we know each other because we’ve only been dating a week...just like Amy and Steve.  We _are_ Amy and Steve.”

Tim sat and pondered.  He too started chuckling.  “I guess we sort of are.”

“Amy would be laughing so hard right now.  And probably slapping me.”  She turned to Tim.  “But see?  You need to go back to San Francisco and become a cop so that some day, when the Lieutenant retires, you can be Steve’s partner in Homicide.”

“What?!  That’s crazy.”

Before Karen could argue, the doorbell rang.  Tim hopped up and answered it.  Karen then heard him call for Ben to come back downstairs.

“Oh, hey Sherlock,” Karen said as Roger walked into the living room.

The boy, who was wearing a black fedora not unlike Mike’s, tipped his hat to Karen.  “Pleasure to see you, Miss Lane.”

Karen shook her head and chuckled at the thirty year old man in the sixteen year old body.  Ben soon bounded into the room.

“Man, I’ve been trying to call you!  Where have you been?”

“Coming over here,” Roger answered.  “I have some very exhilarating news!”

“I can’t wait to hear this,” Karen muttered.

“Is it about the key?” Ben asked.

“Indeed it is.  I have found its reason for existence.”

“Its what?” Karen laughed.

“So?!  What does it go to?” Ben asked anxiously.

Roger held up the key in his right hand.  “This key opens a storage unit over on Thousand Oaks Boulevard.  Unit 358 to be exact.”

Karen’s eyes widened.  “You actually figured out where that key went?  How on earth did you do that?”

“A good detective never reveals his secrets,” Roger told her.

“That’s magicians, but who cares anyway?  Let’s get over there!”  Karen started trying to get up off the couch, which was not an easy task with a broken right arm and leg and ribs that were still healing.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Tim blurted out, running over to her.

“To open the unit!” she said exasperatedly.  “And don’t you dare tell me I’m not!  My mom hid that key for a reason, so there is something in there she doesn’t want us to see.  There’s room in our attic, but there was nothing up there, was there?  No, because it’s all probably in this unit!  I am going!”

She reached out her left hand for him to take.  He sighed and took it, gently pulling her off the couch.  

* * *

 Several minutes later, with Tim driving, he, Karen, and Ben arrived at Unit 358.  It was a small closet-sized unit protected by a simple padlock.  Tim pulled the car to a stop in front of the door and turned off the engine.

“So what’s the plan?” Ben asked.

“You guys go in and see if there’s anything like pictures or diaries hidden in boxes.  I mean, look for anything that seems like it would have been from Mom’s childhood and could tell us something.”

“And what will you do if we don’t find anything?” Tim asked.

Karen stammered before she finally said, “I don’t know...get mad?  Drive up to San Francisco, knock on Steve’s door, and admit that I failed?  I don’t know, I’ll cross the bridge if I come to it.  Just go look.”

Tim shrugged as he and Ben got out of the car.  Tim unlocked the door and pulled up on it, revealing a dusty and warm room the size of a deep closet.

Ben coughed and waved his hand in front of his face as the action of opening the door kicked up the dust.  “How long has it been since anyone’s been in here?  Sheesh!”

Karen, who had opened her car door so she could better see what the boys were doing, turned around and hung her legs out the side.  “Probably not since the stuff was put in here.  Who knows how long that is.”

Once the dust settled, the three stared into the unit.  It was filled mostly with boxes, but there were some old things like bicycles, wagons, and furniture.  

“I’ve never seen any of this stuff,” Karen said of the items not in boxes.

“Could be from her grandparents or parents.  My folks have old furniture stored away that belonged to relatives,” Tim explained.

“Maybe there’s something hidden in the drawers of that old dresser,” Ben suggested, pointing to something in the back.  

“Check it out,” Tim told him.  “I think I’ll start with the boxes.”

“If you find anything interesting, bring it to me!” Karen told them, not wanting to feel left out.  This was her project after all.

For the next two hours, Ben and Tim searched all the boxes and furniture for anything that looked like it might be a clue to Kaye and Margaret’s past.  They loaded the trunk of the car with several boxes before locking up the unit and leaving the dust, bugs, and the one mouse behind.

Arriving back home, Tim took all the boxes out of the car and set them on the living room floor where Ben and Karen were busy looking through them.  The first couple boxes the two looked through yielded nothing, but the third box gave Karen hope.

“These photos look pretty old,” she told the two guys.

“They all look old,” Ben responded.  “Not a color photo anywhere.”

“Yeah, but these look older than the rest.  These people are wearing clothes that were definitely not from the 1950’s.”

Tim looked over her shoulder.  “Looks like the 20’s or early 30's.”

“How can you tell?” she asked him.

He pointed at the photograph.  “Look at that car.  That’s a 1920’s Ford.  Plus, the clothes look like the ones I’ve seen in my parents’ childhood photos.”

“Well...Aunt Margaret was born in 1928, so maybe we’re on to something here!”  Karen got excited and started looking through the whole stack she’d uncovered.  Turning them over, most of them simply said who was in the picture but not when or where it was taken.

“I have no idea who any of these people are.  Leon...Clara...Lloyd and Floyd?”

“Lloyd and Floyd?” Ben asked, chuckling.

“They must be twins.  Those two guys look alike,” Tim said, pointing to two men in denim overalls who were standing next to a car he determined was a 1938 Ford Coupe.  

“Actually, that guy kinda looks like them,” Karen said, pointing to a guy standing at the trunk end of the car.  She then turned the photo over again.  “So Leon and the twins must all be siblings.  But how are they related to Mom?”

Tim took the picture from her as she looked though more.  “You know, Leon and Clara are in most of these photos, and they look like they’re married, so maybe they’re your mom’s parents.”

“Then how come I’ve never heard of them?” Karen asked.

Tim and Ben both looked at her as if to say, _Why did you even ask that?_

“Yeah, yeah, okay.  But I mean, why don’t we know anything about these people?  Were they convicts or something?”

Tim shrugged.  “Maybe we’ll find that out soon.”

All the pictures had the same writing on the back until the end of the pile.  The writing changed as did the descriptions - they became more detailed.

“Yes!” Karen exclaimed after reading one.  “You were right.  Look.”

She turned over the picture and showed the back to Tim and Ben.  Written were the words _The Nielsen Family - Leon, Clara, Margaret, Kaye - 1940_.

Turning the photo back over, Karen said, “Aww...Mom was cute!”

“They all look pissed,” Ben commented.

“Everyone in old pictures looked mad.  It was like it was illegal to smile,” Karen said.

“I don’t know...I think Ben’s onto something.  That does not look like a very happy family.  Look at their body language.  There’s tension.  Margaret is standing as far from her father as she can while having her arms crossed.  Clara looks scared, Leon looks like…”

Karen looked at Tim.  “Like what?”

“A serial killer?”

Karen and Ben gave Tim a surprised look.

“You’ve seen mug shots of serial killers before, right?  Tell me that’s not one.”

The two Lane siblings looked down at the photograph.  “That’s nuts,” Ben said.  “Must be why Aunt Margaret is like she is.”

“Benjy!” Karen scolded her brother using her nickname for him.

“What?  She kidnapped Amy by drugging her.  Tell me how that’s not something a criminal would do.”

“Well...just don’t insinuate that Margaret is a killer.  I do not want to think Amy is dead.”

Tim rubbed Karen’s back.  “That’s not what he meant.”  Tim changed the subject slightly.  “You know, none of these pictures look like California.”

“How can you tell from a black and white picture?  Looks like nowhere to me,” Karen said.

Tim went digging through the pile of photographs they’d already looked through.  “Like this one.”  He pulled one out of the pile.  “There’s a corn field in the background.  That says Midwest to me.”

“They grown corn in California,” Ben argued.  

“Yeah, inland, like around Fresno,” Tim countered.  “Not in L.A. County.”

“How do you know they always lived here?  Maybe they lived somewhere else in California before we were born,” Ben countered back.

“He’s got you there, Tim,” Karen said.  “I know Amy, Benjy, and I were all born in L.A. County, but prior to Amy being born, someone might have lived closer to the desert.”

“Fine.  I still say that is not California.”  He dug through the pile again.  He pulled out another photo and held it close to his face.

“Now what are you looking at?” Karen asked.

“The license plate on this car.”

She leaned over and looked at the picture.  It was another photo of the supposed Nielsen brothers standing in front of an old car that Karen described as “the perfect car to rob a bank with Al Capone.”  The picture clearly showed the front of the car and the license plate, but time and 1930’s camera technology made the plate hard to read.

“I can’t tell what state it says.  Do you have a magnifying glass?” Tim asked.

Ben jumped up and ran off to find one, and Tim followed.  Karen continued to look through the vast pile of pictures.  She occasionally got lost in the little world of the photographs - a world she felt part of but knew nothing about.  She was finally learning names of people she should have known about her entire life.  As she perused the memories, she felt slightly robbed of a family and a history.

Moments later, the melancholy brought on by that disappeared.  At the same time, Ben and Tim came back in the room.

“Nebraska!” they all said in unison.

They looked at each other and, again in unison, asked, “How did you know?”

“Nebraska license plate,” Tim said.

Karen held up the photo in her hand and showed them the back.  “The back says Bennington, Nebraska, 1937.  Must be where they lived before California.  Wonder how they got out here.”

“The gold rush,” Ben joked.

Karen shrugged.  “Could be.”

Ben began laughing.  “The gold rush began in 1848, Dummy.  Frisco’s football team is the 49ers because of that...and it wasn’t _19_ 49.”  

“Don’t call it Frisco,” she and Tim interrupted.  They then laughed at having the same thought.

Ben rolled his eyes and continued to impart his wisdom on his sister.

“I think they should be called the 48ers, because gold fever hit there in 1848, but technically they’re named after the large influx of immigrants who arrived in 1849.”

“Thank you, Funk and/or Wagnall,” Karen smarted back.

“It was probably fame and fortune...so in a way someone _was_ looking for gold,” Tim added.

“Wonder when - and who - came out here,” Karen said, thinking aloud.

“Only the people in the pictures know,” Tim told her.

“We should ask them,” Ben said.

Karen looked over at her brother, confused.  “How are we supposed to do that?  I'm not real sure who any of these people actually are, and I sure don't know where they are now."

"Well," Ben began to explain, "I am going to assume that they are either still in Nebraska or dead.  Otherwise, I think we would have seen them at least once in our lives."

"Even though Mom tried to hide them?"

Ben nodded.  "If they were around here, our paths would have somehow crossed.  Aunt Margaret might have at least mentioned them."  He suddenly stared off at the wall.

"What?" Karen asked.

"I seem to remember Aunt Margaret mentioning her mother once.  During some family gathering."  

Ben sat down on the floor across from Karen and thought for a moment.  "Amy's high school graduation...yeah...pretty sure that was it.  Mom and Aunt Margaret were in the kitchen.  Dad had sent me in there to get something for Grandma Aletha.  When I got to the door, I heard them talking.  It sounded contentious, so I stood at the door and listened.  I can't remember exactly what they said, but Aunt Margaret was going on and on about how her mom would have been so proud of Amy.  Mom argued that she wouldn’t have cared or wouldn’t have known or something.  Then they started arguing about the woman.  I don’t remember everything they said, but Mom didn’t sound like she was her mom’s biggest fan - Aunt Margaret did though.  She was mad at Mom for not wanting to talk about the woman.”

“If that’s the case, then you probably would have at least heard about her had she been alive.  If you aunt loved her mom so much, Amy would have likely known her.  Amy ever mention anything?” Tim asked.

Karen shook her head.  “As far as we both knew, we had no grandparents on our mother’s side.  So what, you think they’re all dead?”

Ben and Tim both shrugged.  “We really have no proof either way,” Tim told her.

Karen threw the picture in her hand down on the floor with the others.  "Then let's go!" she said forcefully as she tried to get up off the floor.

"Go?  Go where?" Tim spit out, suddenly afraid of where this was going.

"To Bennington!  I need to know if these people are dead or alive, and if they’re alive, what the hell has everyone been hiding all these years.  I’m not going to find that sitting around here.  Where do you suppose Bennington is anyway?" she asked, looking at her brother.

Ben ran off to find a map.

"What do you mean let's go to Bennington?  You can’t travel!"  Tim was already annoyed.

“Like hell I can’t.  They wheel people on and off airplanes all the time.  If I can get on, the rest of the trip is up to the pilot.”

“How is travelling halfway across the country going to help find your cousin anyway?  They’re not going to know anything if they haven’t seen your aunt for thirty years!” Tim argued.

“But what if they have?”

“Have what?”

“Seen her recently!  Look, something fishy is going on in this family, and I just bet it has something to do with Nebraska.  Steve told me Aunt Margaret was even in an asylum there at one point, so what’s to stop her from taking Amy there?”

Tim looked at Karen, wanting to argue everything, but even though they’d only known each other two weeks, he knew she was stubborn and didn’t listen well; he found that out just from physical therapy sessions.  

“Fine.  But if you insist on going in your condition, I’m coming with you,” he finally muttered.

Karen smiled.

“How do you propose to pay for plane tickets to Nebraska anyway?” he asked.

Karen grinned again.  “Daddy left me his credit card.”

“Oh that will go over well when he gets the bill.”

“Hey, he said it was for emergencies, and this is certainly an emergency!”

Ben came back into the room with an atlas.  “Help me find it,” he announced, putting the map of Nebraska on the floor.  The three looked at the map - Tim took the west, Ben the middle, and Karen the east.  

After a couple minutes, Karen announced that she was the winner.  “See, there it is, just north of Omaha!” she exclaimed, pointing to the small town in northern Douglas county.

“That will save us having to drive all over the state,” Tim said.

“Well, that’s it then - two tickets to Omaha coming up!”  Karen got herself up on her good leg and attempted to crawl over to the phone.

“Two?  You’re not going?” Ben asked, looking at Tim.

“No, you’re not going,” Karen replied.  “You have to go to school.”

“What good are these last three weeks gonna do me?  I’m already getting straight A’s, and I’ve been excused from all but one final.  Most of my teachers know what’s going on anyway, so they’ll have no problem letting me be gone.”

“You still need a note from Mom or Dad,” Karen explained, grabbing the phone book from under the phone and flipping to the airlines section.

“I could sign your dad’s name,” Tim mentioned.  

Karen looked at him as if to say don’t you dare, but he gave her a look right back.

“Hey, if it weren’t for his friend, none of this would be happening right now, so he deserves to go just as much as you.”

Karen rolled her eyes and muttered, “Fine,” as she picked up the phone and began dialing.


	21. Chapter 21

**_Tuesday, May 21, 1974_ **

Patricia Jorgenson and her husband David - or Miss Trish and Dave as they were often called - had embarked on a new career.  It was one that Patricia, a psychology graduate student, had never imagined even existed.  When she saw the ad for the job though, she knew it would be a wonderful opportunity not only for her studies but her husband’s sociology studies as well.  

It was to be her thesis - how does living away from family affect young children?  Are they adversely affected or is it a wonderful opportunity to grow and learn that normal children miss out on?  Personally she felt the former was true, so she was curious if this job would change her thinking.  So far, in the month she’d been at the school, it hadn’t.

Her prime example was her newest charge - Jasmine Duncan.  She’d come to the school suddenly and at the very end of the spring semester.  Patricia and David’s house had been the only one with room for a six year old, but they took her in gladly.  Patricia felt an instant bond with Jasmine simply because they were both new to the boarding school.  

The other three girls and four boys in the house - offspring of various diplomats, CEOs, and world travelers - had been at the school since they were four; they had all bonded.  Jasmine was an outsider and unfortunately, the other kids weren’t terribly accepting.  It didn't help that Jasmine said zero words to anyone.  The others kids thought she was weird, so they ignored and teased her.  That only served to push her further into her shell.

Both Patricia and David tried to make Jasmine feel comfortable, but it did little.  Patricia tried diving into her psychology background to analyze the girl thinking that maybe she could use some strategy to draw her out.  Her efforts were met with Jasmine now uttering one word phrases but nothing else.  Jasmine continued to do what she'd done since the day she got there - stay in her bedroom writing and drawing.

On this night, Patricia and Jasmine had the house to themselves.  David had the boys out for a pickup basketball game with boys from a neighboring house, and the girls were all at dance practice.  Patricia thought this might be a good time to crack Jasmine’s shell since none of the kids were around to say anything.  Around eight, the typical bedtime for the house, she arrived at the bedroom Jasmine shared with a girl named Elisa, the daughter of an American diplomat who spent most of his time in Italy.  Elisa was the gang leader behind the “Jasmine is weird so don’t talk to her” campaign; having the girls in the same room didn’t help matters any, but Elisa’s room was the only one with a bed.

Patricia stood in the doorway and watched Jasmine, who’d already gotten dressed for bed, color a picture at her desk.  Jasmine had her back to the door, so Patricia knocked.  Jasmine turned around, saw who it was, and turned back without saying anything.  The desk was next to Jasmine’s bed, so Patricia walked over and sat down on the bed.  

“Time for bed?” Jasmine muttered without looking up.

Patricia smiled.  Jasmine was finally up to multi-word phrases.  “Just about, although everyone else is still out, so you can have more time.”  

She looked at what Jasmine was drawing.  “That’s very good.  What is it?”

“A beach.”

“Ooo...I like going to the beach.  Do you?”  Patricia suddenly had high hopes that she and Jasmine could finally have a real conversation.

Jasmine nodded.  “The beaches in San Francisco are kinda cold though.”

Patricia was so surprised that Jasmine said a whole sentence that she forgot to answer the girl for a moment.  She coughed and continued on.  “San Francisco?  Have you gone there on vacation?”

Jasmine shook her head.  “I live there.  My mommy and daddy are there.”

Patricia was shocked.  She wasn’t aware Jasmine had parents.  The impression she’d gotten when one of the school’s administrators introduced her to Jasmine and the Lynches was that the girl was living with them because her parents were dead.  Since they were from Phoenix, she assumed Jasmine was from there too.

“Your mommy and daddy live there?  So why did you live with your aunt and uncle?”  Patricia worried that she was pushing too much, but she needed to try.

Jasmine put her crayon down and looked over at Patricia.  “Because the judge is a meanie, that’s why.”

“Oh,” was all Patricia could say.  She could see that the situation did not make Jasmine happy, so she was going to drop it for the time being, but to her surprise, Jasmine continued to explain.

“My real mom is in jail and my real dad is dead,” she said very matter-of-factly.  Patricia was shocked at her honesty.

“Amy used to be my nanny, but I wanted her to be my new mommy.  The judge said no and made me go to Arizona because Amy is in the hospital.  They should have just let me live with Daddy.”  She crossed her arms over her chest and pouted.   

"She's in the hospital, huh?  Is she sick?" Patricia asked sympathetically.

Jasmine shook her head again.  "A bad man hurt her a lot.  He hurt Daddy too, but he's not in the hospital anymore."

Patricia saw tears begin falling out of Jasmine's eyes.  She wanted to ask why but didn't get a chance.

"I wanna talk ta Daddy!" Jasmine suddenly wailed.  "No one would let me call him!"

"Who wouldn't let you?"

"Aunt Bea or the bad nanny or the scary man or the maid who didn't speak English.  I used to call him, and he would tell me stories and make me laugh, but I got caught."

"What do you mean, you got caught?  You had to sneak around to call him?"

Jasmine nodded.  "I even called collect, but they still yelled at me and locked me in my room."

Patricia couldn't believe what she was hearing.

Jasmine looked over at her with pleading eyes.  "Will you let me call Daddy?  I have his number."  She leapt up and ran to the closet.  Getting into her suitcase, she pulled out Steve's card and handed it to Patricia.

Patricia paused for a moment as she read the card.  "Your dad is a police officer."

Jasmine nodded and got suddenly excited.  "He's great.  He saved Mommy from the bad man.  That's what Grandpa told me.  He's Daddy's partner.  He saved me from the bad man.  They're the best."

Patricia couldn't help but smile at the exuberance she had never seen in Jasmine.  "He sounds like a great guy."

"He is.  Can I call him?"

“Well, it’s kind of late now, and you need your sleep for school tomorrow…”

“Pleeeeeeease!  I used to call him in the middle of the night.  He’ll be awake!”

“How ‘bout tomorrow?  Okay?”  Just as she said that, the front door opened and the boys and girls both came pouring in.

“You want to get to sleep before Elisa gets up here, don’t you?"

Jasmine made a disgusted face and nodded.  She then crawled into bed and pulled the covers up over her face.

Patricia grinned and stood up to leave the room.  Before she could make it out, Jasmine pulled the sheets off her head.

“Tomorrow?”

Patricia nodded and turned off the lights.

* * *

**_Wednesday, May 22, 1974_ **

“You can’t have a decision yet!  I’m not done with my investigation!”

“You are as far as I’m concerned.  We have plenty of evidence...or lack thereof,” Captain Clarence “Larry” Boyle, captain in charge of Internal Affairs, told his sergeant.

“But I’ve just scraped the surface with all the bad things Keller has been doing!  Hell, the whole homicide department!  They’re in the middle of a missing persons case that they should have no involvement in!  They’re only in it because Keller’s girlfriend is the one missing!  Which, by the way, I find very convenient!”

“Holloway...shut up,” Captain Boyle said very calmly.  “That case is on the up and up - I checked myself.  And as for Inspector Keller and the girl, you showed me no evidence that he told her anything confidential or that their relationship somehow messed up the case.  So if you’re mad, well, you only have yourself to blame.”

Holloway swallowed hard.  “Captain...Larry...please, just a few more days…”

“No!  We’ve spent enough time on this.  We have much higher-priority cases to worry about right now.  I need you on the Lyman case.  You’re the best man I have at extortion cases, so I want you to get started on that right away."

Holloway stayed standing in front of his boss’ desk.

“Was there something else, Sergeant?” Boyle asked, annoyed that he’d given an order that wasn’t followed.

Holloway simply shook his head as Boyle walked around him to the door.

“I’m on my way to inform Captain Olsen on our decision.  And it wasn’t a suggestion that you get on the Lyman case right away.”

The older man left, and Holloway didn’t move.  He was too upset to even think about another case.

* * *

Mark yawned and stretched before sitting down at his desk.  He’d been assigned a particularly confusing case and had stayed up half the night working.  As he sat at his desk trying to keep his eyes open, he hoped the morning would go by in peace - no interruptions...no calls from Sergeant Holloway.  All he wanted to do was concentrate on the case he had and forget all about Steve Keller.  His luck lasted roughly a minute before his phone rang.

“Son of a…” he muttered before answering.

“Very professional,” a man on the other end said.  “Just the kind of greeting the public should hear.”

“Dad?  Why are you calling me at work?  At eight in the morning?” he asked, glancing at a clock on the wall.

“I know it’s early, but I wanted to get you before you got busy with your cases.  I’d hate to interrupt a hard-working inspector in the middle of a case.  Don’t want to throw off your concentration.”

Mark didn’t say anything for a moment.  “Uh, thanks.  Um...did you mean to call Max and called me by mistake?"  He could see his father calling his brother hard-working, but not him.

“No, I meant to call you.  I heard some good things about you recently.”

“About me?  From who?”

“One of your sergeants...Holloway I think it was.”

_Oh great_ , Mark thought.   _I can’t wait to hear this_.

“He said he wanted to call me and let me know what an outstanding job you were doing even though you’ve only been there a short time.  He said you’ve even been working on a case for IA.”

“Uh, yeah, I’ve been helping out a little,” Mark muttered.

“That’s wonderful, Son.  I’m glad to see you helping clean up the department.  Your mother and I are very proud of you.”

Mark was too shocked to speak.

“Mark, you still there?”

“Uh...yeah...sorry, Dad.  I got distracted with something someone just handed me,” he lied.

“Nose to the grindstone already.  Good for you!  I don’t want to keep you - just wanted to say job well done.  Your mother would like you to come to dinner this weekend if you’re not busy.”

Mark was floored.  His parents hadn’t asked him to dinner in years.  The only dinners he’d been to were ones that also involved his brother.  Perhaps his father truly was proud of him and his accomplishments.

“I’ll see what my schedule looks like and let you know,” he told his father as he smiled.

The two said their goodbyes and Mark hung up the phone.  He couldn’t believe what he’d just heard.  His father sounded genuinely proud of him - and it was all thanks to Holloway.  As much as he’d bitched and moaned about working for the man, and as conflicted as the whole Keller case had made him, he suddenly felt that it had all been right.  If his father was proud of him, it was all for the best.  He owed Holloway for this and the way he’d pay him back was to get rid of Steve Keller.  His father would really proud of him then.

* * *

All week long, Mike had tried everything in his arsenal to persuade Rudy to let him and Steve go to Nebraska.  Rudy shot down every one of Mike’s reasons.  He insisted that it wasn’t really Homicide’s case - it was Missing Persons’ - so if anyone should go, it would be Sergeant Drake.  However, he was too busy with other cases to go chasing a weak lead in Nebraska.  He also said there wasn’t enough evidence to warrant sending his highest-ranking officer off on a wild goose chase.  Lastly, he was overly worried that someone would think there was a conflict of interest, and Rudy was sick enough of Holloway snooping around his department.

This morning, Mike tried once again, but got the same excuses.  He was starting to wonder if he was losing his touch.  Iron Mike Stone did not give up that easily though.  He was confident he was wearing his boss down a little each day.

He walked into Homicide and found his partner on the phone.  

“Really?  No, that’s great.  I mean, it’s great for my case.  I just wonder how no one caught that before.  Yeah, just let me know if you find anything, and I mean anything.  I don’t care how insignificant.  Thanks.”  Steve hung up the phone.

“Good news about something?” Mike asked him, hoping the young man would spill the beans.

“Yeah, not bad.  That was the lawyer I hired to look into Jasmine’s living situation.  He sent a private investigator out to look into her aunt and uncle.  Apparently the guy dug up some real damning things.  Wouldn’t tell me what exactly, but he did say that it should have made them ineligible to take Jasmine.  The guy’s going down to Arizona in the next couple days.”

Mike smiled.  “Good!  Hopefully this whole mess will be over soon for everyone.”  Mike poured himself a cup of coffee.  “Speaking of...do you think I’m losing my touch?”

Steve looked at him skeptically.  “Huh?”

At that moment, Jeannie walked in with a bakery bag in her hand.

“Do you think I’m losing my touch?  I’ve been on Rudy for a week now about going to Nebraska, and the man will not budge!  I used to be a pretty persuasive guy, you know.”

Steve, having noticed Jeannie come in the room, said, “You want to field this?”

Jeannie chuckled.  “Mike, you’re not losing anything.  Rudy’s probably just having a bad week.”  She patted her father on the arm for reassurance.

“That sounds good.  I’ll go with that,” Steve said.

“Chicken,” Mike told him before looking at his daughter.  “What brings you by?”

“You left without eating breakfast, so I figured you’d need something,” she said, holding up the bag of pastries.

“You must have read my mind,” Steve said as his phone rang.  “Keller, Homicide,” he answered.

“Is this Inspector Steven Keller?” a lady on the other end asked.

“It is.  Can I help you?”

“Hopefully we can help each other.  This may sound weird, but hear me out.  My name is Trish Jorgenson, and I’m a house mother at the Pineridge School in Chatsworth.”

“California?” Steve asked.

“Mmm hmm.  We’re a K through twelve boarding school.  My job is basically to act as a mother for the students who live here.  My newest, Jasmine, tells me that you’re her father?”

Steve nearly dropped the phone out of his hand.  “Jasmine...Jasmine’s at this school you work for?”

“I didn’t figure you’d been put in the loop.  At least that’s not the impression I got.  To be honest, I didn’t know you existed until last night.”

“Um...I’m afraid you’re going to have to start at the beginning, because I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“About, oh, a week ago, actually Mother’s Day of all days, I was called to the administration building to meet a new student.  Since it’s late in the spring semester, very few houses have room for any new students, especially the young ones like Jasmine, but my house did.  Anyway, I go and I meet her and her family.  It was her great aunt and uncle, who tell me they brought Jasmine here because they were heading out of the country and wanted their niece to have a world-class education, especially since her parents were dead.”

Steve leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes.  Mike and Jeannie, who had been watching, looked at each other with concern.

“I was leery of their true intentions, but I gladly took Jasmine in.  She just really looked like she needed a hug, you know?”

“So let me get this straight.  Jasmine lives there?  Like, all the time?”

“Yes.  It’s a year-round boarding school.”

Steve shook his head.  “I should have figured they’d pull something like this,” he muttered.

“Say, if you don’t mind my asking, what exactly is going on?  I mean, I guess I don’t understand everyone’s relationships.  Jasmine told me her nanny was her mom or something…You know, I’m getting too personal.  Forget I asked.”

“No, no...it’s fine.  What did she tell you?”

“Well...that her real mom was in jail and her real dad was dead for starters.”

“That’s true.  That’s how she ended up with her aunt - because she was orphaned.”

“Oh dear.  Well, she also told me she wanted her nanny to be her new mom, but she was in the hospital so a judge made her go to Arizona instead.  Is that right?”

“A simplified version, yeah,” Steve told her.  “My girlfriend Amy used to be Jasmine’s nanny.  We wanted to take her, but a judge up here sent her to Arizona because Amy was in the hospital.  It’s actually a pretty complicated mess.”

“Hmm,” was all Patricia could say.  “No wonder she wasn’t very talkative.  Sounds like she’s been through a lot.  Anyway, this can all be discussed later.  The real reason I called was because Jasmine gave me your number last night and begged me to let her call you.  It was late, so I told her maybe today.  I guess she used to call you from Arizona, but they took the phone away from her.”

Steve sighed.  That explained why he hadn’t heard from her lately.

“Last night I got to thinking - this weekend is a Parents’ Weekend.  They have them every couple months.  Parents and family can come to campus and see their kids, take them off campus, get tours of the school...you know.  I wondered if you’d be able to come down this weekend.  It's taken me every day since she's been here to get Jasmine to say more than a couple words at a time, but when she did, it was about you, so I thought seeing you could only do her good.  I’d love to surprise her.”

Steve didn’t even hesitate or think about his schedule.  “Absolutely.  I’ll be there.  Friday or Saturday?”

“Wonderful!” Patricia exclaimed.  “The doors open, so to speak, on Friday afternoon, so either day is fine.  I have a feeling that her aunt wouldn’t be too happy with me, but you know what?  I don’t care.  I feel bad for her.”

Steve snickered.  “I’ll tell you the whole story this weekend.”  

He went on to ask her for directions and other essential information.  Jeannie and Mike quietly discussed what they thought was going on, both slightly worried that it was bad.

Steve thanked Patricia for calling him and hung up.  He turned and saw the Stones looking at him.  “She sent her to a boarding school in L.A.”

“Who sent who where?” Mike asked.

“Beatrice Lynch sent my daughter to a boarding school.  In another state!”  He shook his head and laughed.  “There’s actually a place that takes six year olds as boarders.”

“That’s terrible!  Although it might just be better than being in that horrible house.  And she’s at least back in California.  Who was that on the phone?” Jeannie asked.

“Her house mother.  Apparently they live in houses with people paid to be their parents.  Jasmine gave her my number, so she called to invite me to the school this weekend.  She said Jasmine wasn’t doing well, and she hoped seeing me will make her feel better.”

“And you’re going?” Mike asked, knowing full well he was.

“Damn right I’m going!  You want to see persuasion?  Watch me get the weekend off from Olsen,” Steve said as he picked up the phone.

Mike cleared his throat.  “Speaking of the devil,” he muttered as he watched Captain Olsen come into the squad room.

Steve put the receiver down and stood up.  “Captain.  Just the man I wanted to see.”

“You may want to put a hold on that thought, Steve.  Can you, uh, come into my office?  We need to have a talk.”

Worry suddenly hung over the room.  “What’s this about, Rudy?” Mike asked.

“Holloway’s investigation, isn’t it?” Steve said, his voice having lost any shred of hope it had before.

Olsen just nodded.

“Well, then lead the way,” Steve said, raising his hand and making a gesture showing Olsen that he’d follow him.

Olsen gave Mike an apologetic look before turning and walking toward his office.  Steve followed without looking at either him or Jeannie.  Once the two were gone, Jeannie leaned on her father, a sudden sadness taking over.

* * *

Half an hour later, Steve came back in the squad room.  He found Mike and Jeannie in Mike’s office.

When Jeannie saw him at the door, she jumped out of her chair.  “So?”

Steve came in and, leaving the door open, took a seat in another chair.  “So...now I don’t have to ask for time off.  I’m free to roam the country as I please.”

“Suspension?” Mike asked.

Steve nodded.  “Two weeks.”

“What?!  That’s ridiculous!”

Steve shrugged.  “I handled Paul’s arrest all wrong...I shouldn’t have been there alone...I shouldn’t have been there at all...blah blah blah.  Boyle didn’t seem to care about me seeing Amy though.”  He chuckled before adding, “You know, I really don’t even care.  Now I can go see Jasmine, concentrate on finding Amy…”

“Go to Nebraska,” Mike told him.

“Go to Nebraska,” Steve agreed.

Mike suddenly coughed.  “I don’t feel very good.”  He looked at Jeannie.  “Sweetheart, do you think I feel warm?  Do I look okay to you?”

Jeannie looked quizzically at her father before putting her hand on his forehead.  “You feel fine to me, Mike.”

Steve chuckled.  He knew exactly what Mike was doing.  “I don’t know, Jeannie.  He’s looking kinda peaked.”

She looked at Steve and then at Mike.  “What are you two…”  Then she figured it out.  

“Let me try again.  My hand was cold.”  She felt her father’s forehead again.  “Oh, you do feel warm.  Your skin also feels clammy.  I think you need a good week off, Mike.”

Mike grinned and stood up from his chair.  “I think I’ll go tell the boss I’m taking off sick.”

Before he got out the door, Jeannie gasped.  “I have a great idea!  Why don’t we all fly down to L.A. this weekend and see Jasmine.  Then from there, we can fly to Nebraska!  What do you guys say?”

Mike and Steve looked at each other and discussed the plan without saying a word.  They both then turned to Jeannie.

“You think we can get plane tickets this late?” Mike inquired.

“Sure!  I’ll find something!  In fact, I’ll go do that right now,” Jeannie said, grabbing her purse and heading for the door.  She stopped at Mike and held out her hand.  He slapped it causing Steve to laugh.

“Miiikkeee,” Jeannie whined.

Mike laughed, got his wallet out of his back pocket, opened it, and handed his daughter a credit card.  She kissed him goodbye and ran out the door.

Mike glanced over at a still snickering Steve.  “You just wait.  In ten more years, you’ll be doing the same thing.”

Steve stood up and followed Mike out the door.  As he walked over to his desk, he couldn’t help but let out a little chuckle.  In ten years, Jasmine would be sixteen and girls that age do frequently ask their fathers for money.  He saw no reason why he wouldn’t still be in her life, so he probably would be handing her his credit card as she ran out the door to have a good time with friends.  It was a thought that just a month ago he never would have had and would have laughed at anyone who suggested he would.  He couldn't believe how much his life had changed in such a short time.

Being lost in his own thoughts caused him not to notice the man standing by Mike’s office getting coffee.  It was Mark Stilwell, and the man had a devilish grin on his face.  He was busy processing everything he’d just heard about Steve’s suspension and their trip to Nebraska.


	22. Chapter 22

**_Thursday, May 23, 1974_ **

Mark sat at the bar in the Ritz Carlton lounge drinking a scotch on the rocks.  He glanced at his watch for the hundredth time since he’d been sitting there.  

“Your date’s not standing you up, is she?” the bartender asked, having noticed his repetitive behavior.

Mark shook his head.  “I’m not waiting for a woman; I’m waiting for a man.”  Immediately he realized how that sounded and tried to backtrack.

“I...I mean...I’m waiting on a business associate!  He just happens to be a man…”

The bartender held up his hands.  “Hey, I don’t care what you do in your free time.  This is San Francisco after all.  If you can’t be yourself in this city, then forget it, ya know?”

Fortunately for Mark, another customer approached the bar, distracting the bartender.  He sighed and looked toward the entryway where he saw Holloway finally walking in.  Mark stood up and motioned for the sergeant to follow him to a booth in the corner.

“We could've sat at the bar,” Holloway said as he slid into the booth.

“No, no we couldn’t.  The bartender is an eavesdropper.”  Mark took another drink to calm his nerves and set the glass down on the table.  “I was beginning to wonder if you were coming or not.”

“Traffic,” Holloway muttered as a waitress came over to take his drink order.  He ordered a bone dry martini and she walked away.

“Bone dry martini?  What’s that?” Mark asked.

“A martini with all the alcohol I can get,” Holloway answered while trying to rub the tired out of his eyes.  “It’s been a shitty couple days.”

“Keller’s suspension has you in that bad a mood?  I thought you’d be happier.”

“I would be if my boss weren’t a delusional idiot.”

Mark gave him a curious look. 

“The only thing he was really interested in was Keller’s involvement at the house and the shooting there.  Basically, all Keller got in trouble for was disobeying orders, not waiting for backup, and putting people in danger.  He said both that shooting and the earlier one at the cemetery were clean.”

“But there’s more,” Mark said.

Holloway glanced at him sideways.  “Perceptive, Kid.”  He paused.  "No one seemed to care that Keller had a thing going with the...whatever she was.  It’s a clear rules violation, but Boyle was willing to just let it slide.”

The waitress brought his martini, which he promptly picked up as if he were making a toast.  “Open market on sleeping with suspects and victims!  Get ‘em while they’re hot, boys!”

As the two took long sips from their drinks, Mark looked across the table at his drinking companion.

“This is personal, isn’t it?” he asked straightforwardly.

Holloway set down his glass.  “What makes you say that?”

Mark chuckled.  “If I were you, and I’d just gotten Keller suspended for two weeks without pay, I’d be happy.  Two weeks is a lot for a guy like him - well-liked, exemplary record, squeaky clean as they come.  I was actually expecting far less.  I’ve seen guys do worse and gotten less!

"But you...you’re still seething, mainly because of the thing with Amy Johnson.  That tells me it’s purely personal.”  He paused before adding, “Which shouldn’t be a factor in the case, you know.”

“Oh, you’re real smart, aren’t you?" Holloway snapped.  "I’m perfectly aware of the fact that I can’t get rid of this guy based solely on my dislike of him.”

He took another drink and started laughing.  “This is all funny coming from you though.”

“How so?” Mark asked, getting annoyed.

“You, Mister Follow the Rules, is sitting here telling me I’m in the wrong, yet who called me to this little meeting with the promise of some information on Keller?  Hmm?  You knew the I.A. case was closed when you called, yet here you are, keeping it going.  You’re no better than me.”

Mark scowled at Holloway.

“Admit it - you don’t like the guy any more than I do.  You want him gone so you don’t have to be a jealous little baby anymore.”

Mark decided he didn’t need to be insulted, so he started scooting out of the booth.

“Hold on.  I’m just gettin’ at ya.  If you got something on him, I wanna hear it.”

Mark slowly slid back into the booth.  “On one condition.”

Holloway looked at him, surprised.  “There’s a condition?”

Mark nodded.  “You know why I don’t like the guy, but I don’t know why you don’t.  I know what you told me earlier about cops on the edge, but that's not the whole reason you hate him.  You tell me why, and I’ll tell you what I heard.”

Holloway took another long drink while giving Mark an indignant look.  

After a lengthy pause, Mark asked, “How bad do you want it?”

Holloway pushed the now empty martini glass to the side.  “Fine.  I guess I owe you that.  Not like it hasn’t been on my mind lately anyway.”

He took a deep breath and started his story.  “I started my career with the Chicago PD.  This buddy of mine from high school and I decided to go through the academy together.  We even ended up in the same precinct.  Obviously we ended up with different partners over the years, but we were tight.  Always had each other’s backs.  

“One day, both he and his partner and me and mine responded to a hostage situation at a bank.  His partner was a real arrogant, pretty boy son of a bitch and thought he could disarm the hostage taker all by himself.”

Mark nodded knowingly.  “Did he?”

“Oh, he did, sure, but not before getting a civilian shot.  This damn woman though...she falls for the jackass!  He gets her shot, but she falls in love with him because he stayed with her while she was bleeding all over the floor!”

Mark was starting to see the similarities between this and how Steve met Amy.

“She was obviously an active part of the resulting investigation, as were the four of us cops.  What we all didn’t know though was that she knew the punks who robbed the bank.  She’d been the one who helped get them in in the first place!  And what does my friend’s idiot partner do?  He spills all the secrets of the investigation to her...you know, in the heat of the moment.  

“The robbery guys were getting close to figuring everything out, so once the robbers found that out from this girl, they went after the detectives.  My buddy and his partner end up getting caught in the middle of it and my buddy ends up dead.  The woman - she walked away without a scratch.”

Mark stopped seeing the correlation.  “You had me for a while, but you just lost me.  You’re comparing Steve Keller to your friend’s partner?”

“Cut from the same cloth those two.”

Mark narrowed his eyes.  “But Amy Johnson wasn’t involved in her own shooting, or her being held hostage.  There was no evidence that Keller told her anything that got anyone hurt or jeopardized the legality of the case.  Hell, the only one who really suffered was him.”

“Don’t you see that that’s the point?!  My boss put a rush job on my investigation so I didn’t have the time to dig deep enough to get that evidence!  Then Amy conveniently disappears!  Keller’s probably hiding her somewhere so we can’t get to her!”

Mark wasn’t sure what to think.  Part of him felt that Holloway was right in his persecution of Steve, but now another part of him thought the man was losing his mind.  “I don’t think he’d be so distraught and talking to dead women if he knew where she was.”

“He’s a damn good actor,” Holloway growled.  

“Oh.”  There was a pause as Stilwell tried to process this mess and Holloway ordered another martini.  

“So...you’re confident that Steve told Amy confidential information?” Mark asked quietly.

“How else would any of what happened happen?  If Amy wants to blame anyone for her getting kidnapped from Keller’s apartment, she only has to look to him.  That Carpenter fellow only found her because Keller insisted she stay at his place.  He told people where she was...he told her everything that was going on…”

Holloway slammed his fist on the table, causing Mark to jump.  “I need to get to that girl!  I can make her tell me everything he told her.  Then I’ll get to be the one to put the final nail in the coffin of Steven Keller.”

Mark wasn’t sure he where Holloway was getting all this.  He’d read the entire report, courtesy of the man sitting across from him, and it clearly stated that Paul beat Karen until she told him where Amy was staying.  Nothing else indicated that anyone outside of Steve, Mike, and Karen knew Amy was at Steve's.  The report also vehemently stated that it was Amy’s decision to stay at Steve’s, and that everyone with the department was behind the decision for her to stay there, versus at a hotel, one hundred percent.  That was mainly because there was no actual open case on Paul stalking and threatening Amy.  He may have been a murder suspect, but not against Amy.  As far as the San Francisco Police Department was concerned, she was just a girl staying overnight with a man - not a victim hiding from a suspect.

Mark dared to remind Holloway of this fact; Holloway proceeded to accuse him of colluding with the enemy. Mark managed to talk him out of that idea by reminding him of his dislike of Steve, so then Holloway completely dropped that angle and tried another that he knew Mark couldn’t dispute.

“Look, that’s not really the main issue anyway.”

Mark gave him a skeptical look.  “It’s not?  But that’s all you’ve dwelled on for the past…”

His rebuttal was quickly interrupted.  “Having a relationship with someone who’s involved in a case is bad, but there’s something that’s worse.”

“And that is what exactly?  Killing your suspect?”  Mark chuckled at the absurdity of his statement.

“Exactly,” Holloway answered with no emotion.

Mark sat back against the booth.  “Are you saying Steve Keller killed the kidnapper in cold blood?”

Holloway simply nodded.

Mark tried to spit out a response, but he couldn’t fabricate one that made any sense.  He ended up just once again reminding the sergeant of what was contained within the incident report.

“There was absolutely no doubt that Paul Carpenter was a kidnapper...Lieutenant Stone and Keller had found plenty of evidence to pin several murders on the man.  From what I read, the D.A.’s office would have had no trouble putting him away for life.”

“So you think he deserved to die at the hand of a man who despised him?” Holloway interrupted.

“Well...I...if he put an officer’s life at risk, then shooting him is justified,” Mark answered.

“How do you know Keller’s life was in danger?  Were you there?”

“Of course not,” Mark scoffed.

“That’s the point.  You clearly read the report - you saw who  _ was _ there.  A man and his girlfriend against a man they both hated.  Keller was the only one with a gun.”

“But everyone’s prints were on that gun!  That says to me that Paul Carpenter had it held to one of them at some point.  If it wasn’t Steve, then it was Amy.  In that case, he acted as any officer would if a suspect refuses to back down.”

“Oh, and you know that Keller gave Carpenter several chances to relinquish the gun?”

All Mark could do was shrug.

“All hearsay...just their word against the word of a conveniently dead man.”  He took a drink of his second martini before explaining further.  “Look, Keller was in the middle of yet another fling with a woman he met while on the job.  It’s become so frequent with him that it might as well be his M.O.  Only thing is, now it was starting to catch up with him; important people were starting to notice this M.O.  Knowing he was in the wrong, he naturally got a bit nervous that his job was in jeopardy.  In his stress-riddled mind, he figured this Carpenter fella would tell us all about their relationship, and how Keller was a one-man army out to get him...so he shot the guy before he could talk.  Not only did he save his job, but he got rid of his romantic competition.”

Mark wanted to say how he didn’t feel that Steve even remotely saw Paul as competition for Amy’s affections, but he figured at this point that would be beating a dead horse.  Instead he simply stated, “You don’t know that any more than I do.”

“No...but she does.”

“And you think you can get her to talk?”

Holloway made a face like that was the most asinine question ever asked.  “Of course I can!  All I have to do is remind her that she doesn’t really know him, and I highly doubt she’s knows about his past with women.  I don’t think there’s a woman alive who likes to learn that the man she’s in love with is playing her for a fool.

“Hey, I sympathize with the girl!  She’s just as much Keller’s victim as all the other women he’s left behind in his sick quest to gain girlfriends, or whatever the hell his goal is.  She just doesn’t realize she’s a victim.  Once she realizes that she’s being strung along like a puppet, she’ll throw him under the bus.  Even a delusional, brainwashed woman doesn’t want a man who will leave her for yet another victim someday.”

Mark paused momentarily.  “So your whole case is dependent on her, isn’t it?”

Holloway looked right into Mark’s eyes.  “She holds all the cards right now.  When I get to her...I’ll get to the truth.  And when I do, I’ll expose Steven Keller for the fraud he is.  He’s not a cop; he’s a man using his position to rid the world of his competition.  To him, the department is no more than a dating service.  You want to serve with a man like that?”

Mark shook his head.  Then the two men sat in silence for what seemed like hours.  Holloway was once again too riled up to hold a decent conversation, and Mark was too confused to participate in one.  As Mark sat and pondered his next move, he realized his whole relationship with Holloway had been one of trust and distrust.  Sometimes he was a hundred percent in Holloway’s corner, agreeing with his every move.  Then Holloway would do a one-eighty and seemingly go off the rails.  

He was on board with the whole angle of Steve focusing too much on things not related to the job, and him using his power as an officer to get what he wanted, but he wasn’t on board with Holloway’s version of what happened at Paul’s.  This made him torn internally as to what he should do.  He wanted Steve gone if for no other reason than wanting his job, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to go along with Holloway to get that done.  

"I don’t know…” he started to object, but Holloway began talking over him.

“Just think...if we expose Keller, you could very well get his job.  Your father would be pretty proud of you then, wouldn’t he?  Nice guy, your dad.  Good, honest cop.”

Mark nodded while he remembered what he’d thought the day before - that he owed Holloway for helping his father see the light.  Regardless of how back and forth he was about this case, he owed the man.    

“You know, if you really want to convince Amy that her boyfriend is a wolf, you’re going to need solid proof.  Without proof, she’ll defend him against everything you say.  It’s just the way women are,” he told the sergeant.

Holloway paused while he finished off the martini.  “She  _ was _ pretty belligerent when I interviewed her in the hospital.  You got something in mind?”

“Well...if you were to catch him with a woman and get it on film, she’d have a hard time disputing it.”

“You mean like setting him up?”

Mark half nodded and half shrugged.  

Holloway looked past Mark at nothing while he ate his olives.  “You know...I may have just the girl.  Yeah...as I was working on my case against him, I talked with one of his ‘victims’ -  Kathryn Castro.  She and Keller had some kind of thing going on a couple years ago.  She got wrapped up in her brother’s crimes and Steve was her savior.  As I was talking to her, I could tell she hadn’t exactly gotten over him.  I bet...yeah...I bet if we somehow convince her that Steve’s single, maybe we could get her to rekindle the flame.”

Both men became silent again - both trying to figure out how that would even work.

“Oh, I almost forgot.  What was it you wanted to tell me?” Holloway asked.

“Um...I overheard that they’re going to Nebraska for some reason.  Stone was even going to fake sick to go.  They mentioned it right after mentioning Amy, so maybe they think she’s there or something.”

“Nebraska?  Hmm.”

The conversation once again stalled as Holloway thought of a plan.  Mark couldn’t read the man - did he think this was good information or not?  He admittedly didn’t think it was much, but maybe Holloway did.

“Find out their plans - when they’re leaving, where they’re staying.  Then I’ll discuss everything with Kathryn.  Once you find out when they’ll be there, buy a ticket for yourself and her.”

“To Nebraska?  I’m going?”

“Someone needs to get the photographic evidence.  Plus, if you’re there, you can get word to me if they find Amy - and if they do, you can get to her first.”

Mark nodded.  “Okay...but how am I gonna get outta work?”

“Fake sick like everyone else.”  Holloway scooted out of the booth and stood up.  He got into his wallet and pulled out a few bills which he threw on the table.  “I’ll be in touch,” was all he said before he walked swiftly toward the exit, excited to begin phase two of his plan to rid the SFPD of Steve Keller.

Mark stayed seated.  He picked up his scotch and started moving the glass around in a circle.  Watching the ice cubes go around and clank against the glass took him away from his worries about the new plans.  He had no idea how he was going to find out when Mike and Steve were heading to Nebraska, how he was going to set up Steve, or how he was even going to keep tabs on them while they were out of town.  It seemed all like a giant impossibility.  

The longer he sat, the more he thought.  He’d read the incident reports several times in an effort to get a handle on Steve and the kind of cop he is.  Between what Holloway seemed most concerned with and what was in the reports, there seemed to be some inconsistencies.  Holloway seemed to have a vision of what went down at Paul’s that didn’t jive with the stories both Amy and Steve told.  He wasn’t exactly sure what Holloway’s vision was though, so he made a mental note to ask.  

Then he got to thinking about I.A.’s report, which Holloway had also, rightfully or not, given him to read.  Even after reading it once, he was skeptical of the witness statements that kept popping up in regards to Steve and Amy’s relationship.  The reports never indicated who these witnesses were or why they were in the know about the relationship, but they seemed to know things that they shouldn’t.  He didn’t want to jump on the set-up bandwagon, but it did cross his mind.  Was Holloway desperate enough to punish Steve that he would fabricate statements?  Would he have spies around?   _ Am I just being paranoid? _ Mark asked himself.  He decided he probably was.  After all, having a crooked cop in I.A. was highly unlikely.

He decided to put his speculations aside for the time being and focus on the task at hand.  Regardless of what Holloway had done to get his information, Steve was still in Mark’s way of becoming a full-fledged inspector and needed to be dealt with accordingly.  He considered asking his father for ideas on how to get his tasks accomplished.  Since the man was now on his side, and since it would be for a good cause, he figured the man would be willing to help.  Mark took one last drink from his glass, stood up, and left the bar.

While Mark had been sitting and pondering, a man in the booth behind him had gotten up and walked over to a payphone that was near the restrooms.  After inserting his dime, he dialed a number and waited for an answer.  When he got one, all he said was, “You ready to take a little trip?”


	23. Chapter 23

**_Friday, May 24, 1974_ **

Karen sat in the window seat of an Omaha-bound 747.  Tim, who’d won an arm wrestling match over Ben for the middle seat, sat next to her, and the sore-loser sat on the aisle.  In order to get on a nonstop flight, they had to wait a week to leave.  Karen wasn’t thrilled, but Tim and Ben managed to convince her that Amy, if she was in Nebraska, would be okay in the meantime. Tim also managed to convince her that she would feel better if she rested a week before trying to tackle a three-hour plane ride.  

An hour into the flight, she’d grown bored of reading, so she dug through her purse and took out a stack of photos.  After her initial find, Karen had found some different pictures in another box.  They seemed to be from around the same time period, but they were not of Leon, Clara, or any other adult who had been in the first batch.  These photographs were taken in front of and in a completely different house with a completely different set of people.  According to the backs of most of them, the couple were a Jack and Lillian Koestler, and the two little boys who were usually hanging around were their sons, Walter and Freddie.  Kaye was in a vast majority of the pictures as well, but Margaret’s presence was few and far between.

Tim, who had been trying to sleep, opened his eyes and looked over at Karen.

“You’ve been looking at those pictures all week.  They haven’t changed.”

“I think they’re fascinating.  Plus I’m constantly amazed at how much happier Mom looks in these than she did in the ones with her parents.”

“And how unhappy your aunt looks,” Tim added.

“Yeah...I wonder why…” Karen mused.

“I wonder who those people even are,” Ben added.

Karen shrugged.  “I don’t know, but I hope that if Leon and Clara aren’t around, these people are.  I don’t want to think that we’re making this trip just to find nothing.”

A few tears started falling down Karen’s cheeks, so Tim reached over and wiped them away.  “What’s bothering you?  You feel okay?” he asked, concerned that she was in pain.

Karen nodded.  “I feel fine.  I just...I just don’t know what I’m going to do if we don’t find anything.  I don’t have any other ideas!  And I just...I can’t stand the thought that Margaret got away with this, and I could never see Amy again.”  She laid her head on Tim’s shoulder and began softly crying.  

Tim took her hand.  “Hey, like I told you before, if we don’t get any answers, I’ll call Mike and see what they’ve found.  I’m sure with their resources, they’ve found something.”

“Then how come Steve hasn’t called me?”

“Maybe he has the wrong number just like you,” Ben told her.

“Or maybe no one knows where she is!” Karen snapped back.  

“Calm down,” Tim told her.  “Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it.  Hopefully we won’t even get there.”

* * *

Upon arrival at Eppley Airfield, the trio deplaned and, once they located a wheelchair, headed off to baggage claim.  Karen was getting grumpy at all the waiting they had to do even though most of it was on her account.  Ben chose to point this out to her which made her even crankier.  As Tim stood and waited for a rental car, he began to hope even more than they found Amy around here somewhere, if for no other reason that to make Karen stop complaining.

After an hour at the airport, they headed north toward Bennington.  They decided that their first order of business among arriving in town was to seek out a phone book and look up both the Nielsens and the Koestlers.  

“What if they’re not in town anymore?” Ben asked from the backseat.  “I mean, what if they’re not in the phone book?”

“Well…” Karen started, “we’ll drive around town until we find the houses in the pictures I guess.”

“Driving around looking for one particular house that’s probably changed some in forty years is ridiculous,” Ben told her.

“Don’t you two start arguing,” Tim muttered as he drove west along State Highway 36.  “Truth is, I don’t think this town is big enough to really get lost in.  There can’t be too many houses to look at.  Though I do tend to agree with Ben.  Houses change over time.”

“They don’t change their basic structure!  Even if we find one that looks similar, maybe someone who lives there can help us.”

As they rolled into the northern edge of town, they saw a gas station on the corner of the highway and County Road 60, which was the main road into town.  Pulling in, they saw a phone booth and Tim pulled up to it.  He hopped out of the car and began looking through the phone book.  Given that the town only had roughly seven hundred people in it, the book was not very thick.  

“Well?” Karen asked through the open windows after barely a minute.

“I’m looking!” Tim griped back as he furiously flipped pages.  “I don’t see anything.”

“Are you spelling them right?” she asked.

Tim looked up at her through the windshield.  “Do I look like an idiot?  I do know how to spell.”

“Oh, sorry,” she uttered sarcastically.  “So how do you spell Nielsen?”

“Nei…”

She imitated the sound of a game show buzzer.  “Oh, I’m sorry.  The correct answer is N I E.  Thanks for playing.”

Tim rolled his eyes and looked back down at the book.  “Sorry, still no N I E.  There is no Nielsen or Nelson or anything else.”

“Damn,” Karen muttered.  “What about the Koestlers?  That’s K O E.”

Tim gave her a dirty look.  “Could you be a little less of a bitch about this?”

Karen returned his look.  “I haven’t had any pain pills in a while, and I’m tired.”

Tim rolled his eyes again and looked back down at the book.  “K-o-e-...I don’t see that either.”

“Nothing?  No Lillian, no Jack, no Walter or Freddie?  Don’t tell me no one lives here anymore!"

Tim closed up the book and returned it to the phone.  "Sorry.  Looks that way."

He got back into the car and, before starting it, turned to Karen.  "Now what?  You wanna drive around and look?"

Karen, already looking dejected, nodded.  She then got into her purse and pulled out the photos, handing each man a few.  "Here's what we're looking for."

Tim and Ben studied the black and white houses, trying to get a good mental picture of each.  Soon, Tim started the car and pulled back onto County Road 60, heading south into the heart of Bennington.

Tim had been correct in his assumption that Bennington wasn't a large town.  Their house search took them barely an hour, and that was with stopping at every house to intently study it and taking two or three sweeps of some streets.

At the end of 153rd Street, Tim sat at the stop sign.  "Now what?" he asked, looking at both his passengers.

Karen looked so defeated that she was on the verge of tears.  "I was so sure this would work," she muttered.  "This just can't be the end!"

"Actually, it might not be," Ben chimed in from the back seat.

"You got an idea?" Tim asked, turning around to look at the teenager.

"Well, it's just a thought, but since we know they lived here at one time, they'd likely be in an old phone book.  If we could find one from the 30's or 40's, we might find where they used to live."

Karen made a face like she thought that was a terrible idea, but Tim thought otherwise.

"That's a great idea!  Too bad you didn't think of it an hour ago."

Ben chuckled.

"Where in the hell are we supposed to find thirty year old phone books?  That's ridiculous, Benjy."  Karen got so upset that she slammed her casted arm against the car door.  That only resulted in her wincing in pain.   

“It’s not ridiculous.  It makes perfect sense,” Tim told her.  “I imagine a good place to start looking would be the library.  Maybe City Hall.”

Karen just shook her head and rolled her eyes.

“I think I saw the library down there off that one diagonal street,” Ben mentioned, choosing to ignore his sister.

Tim turned the car to the left and headed toward where they thought they saw the library.  Sure enough, it was where the boys thought it was, so Tim parked the car in the gravel parking lot and headed in with Ben.  He offered to get the wheelchair for Karen, but she refused to move, insisting this whole thing was a waste of time.    

“They call this a library?  Looks like it’s only big enough for two books,” she grumbled after the boys had gone inside the building.

Several minutes later the two came out. Tim was holding a piece of paper.  After he got back in the car, he waved it in front of her face.  “Guess what we got?” he taunted.

“The library lady’s phone number?”

“Well, yeah, but that’s not all,” Tim teased.  “I also got a couple addresses.”

She looked at him, her eyes at the top of her head like she was looking over a pair of glasses.  “Seriously?”

Tim shoved the paper at her, and she took it. “They’re even on the same street.”

He backed up the car and pulled it out of the parking lot, heading to his left and toward North 2nd Street.

“They actually had old phone books in there?” Karen asked in amazement.

“The librarian had to dig through a lot of dusty boxes and stuff in a back room, but I think she was quite enamored with your boyfriend, so she did it with a smile.”  Ben then snickered.

Karen gave Tim a quizzical look.  “Just how exactly did you get these addresses?”

Tim laughed.  “I can’t help it if old ladies think I’m hot stuff.”

“Mmm hmm,” was all Karen said.  She looked at the paper.  “Did your girlfriend know either family?”

“Didn’t get a chance to ask.  Someone else took her attention away, so she let us just rummage ourselves.  North 2nd is just right up here though.”

Tim took a right and pulled the car onto the street.  They only had to drive by a handful of houses until they found where 162 was...or where it was supposed to be.

Tim pulled the car the wrong way next to the curb, and everyone looked out the driver’s side windows.

“It’s an empty lot, Tim,” Karen informed him.

“I realize that, but 162 has to be right here.  That house is 158 and that one is 166,” he explained as he pointed to the two adjacent houses.

“Maybe it’s across the street,” Karen suggested.

“Even numbered houses are always on the same side of the street.  The house just isn’t there,” Ben said.

The trio stared at the empty lot for a few moments before Karen announced, “I want to get out and look.”

“At an empty lot?” Tim questioned.

“Yeah, at an empty lot.”  

Tim shrugged and exited the car.  He walked around the front of the car, opened the front passenger door, and lifted Karen out of the seat.  He then carried her over to the lot and set her down in the overgrown parking.  She leaned against him, using him as a crutch.

After staring at the weed-filled lot for several seconds, Karen finally uttered the rhetorical question, "Where did it go?"

No one really knew what to say since no one had an answer.  

"Old houses get demolished all the time.  That's probably what happened," Ben reasoned.  It was as logical as any other idea running through their heads.  

"So then where are the people?" Karen muttered.  “They couldn’t have just disappeared.”

Tim and Ben simply looked at each other and shrugged.  “People disappear all the time, too,” Ben added.

"You were right, you know," an unfamiliar voice said.

The trio turned to their right and saw a middle-aged woman walking a golden retriever.

"About it being demolished I mean," she added.  "Sorry, I didn't mean to eavesdrop."

After seeing the puzzled looks on their faces, she continued.  “No one’s lived on this lot since 1941, when the original house burned down.  It was knocked down shortly after.”

Karen attempted to turn her body toward the woman.  “Burned down?”

The lady nodded.  “I remember it like it was yesterday.  In a town of only three hundred some people, a burning house becomes an event."  She paused before adding, "It also leads to a lot of rumors."

Karen suddenly felt cold.  She crossed her arms over her chest and looked at the woman.

"I know it might seem weird for strangers to be interested in an empty lot, but I think my grandparents used to live here...back in the 30’s and 40’s.  I don't really know anything about them, so..."  Karen shrugged her shoulders.

“You’re a Nielsen?”

Karen half nodded while the lady made a face like she was surprised.

“I have to admit, I never thought any of them would ever end up back here.  Well, that’s what I always heard the adults say anyway.  I was only ten when she burned it down.”

“Someone burned the house down?  On purpose?” Tim asked, not sure he heard the lady correctly.

She nodded.  “It’s one of those things you don’t really forget, no matter how much time passes.  Clara Nielsen set fire to the house with her and her kids inside.  Everyone was saying that she was trying to kill them all to get away from Leon.”

Everyone stared at her in disbelief.  Karen told Ben to grab some of the pictures from her purse and show them to the woman.  

“Yep, that’s them," she said, looking at the photos.  "You said you were Clara’s granddaughter?”

“I think so.  I think my mom is the little one in the picture,” Karen answered.  “So, my grandmother tried to kill everyone to get away from my grandfather?”

“That was what everyone was saying.  The Nielsen’s never were a good group.  The whole family had given the police fits for years.  Nothing too serious at first - vandalism, petty theft, general mischief - but it escalated with each generation.”

The lady kept staring at the picture as she spoke.  “It’s like an unexpected walk down memory lane.”

“Um,” Ben started, “we really don’t know much about them.  Our mom doesn’t talk about her past.  Can you tell us anything about them?”

Karen gave him a scolding look for asking that of a stranger, but the lady smiled.  “I can’t say I blame her for not talking.  I remember your mom.  Kaye, right?  She was a couple years younger than me, but we would often walk home from school together.  We may not have been very old at the time, but I remember she would ask to come over to my house a lot.  She just never wanted to go home.  I didn’t think anything of it at the time, because all the kids in the neighborhood played at each other’s houses.  As I got older though, after your mom moved away, I realized that she was more than likely scared of her home.”

“Scared?  Why?” Karen asked.

“Granted these were just rumors I heard from a gaggle of bored housewives, but everyone was certain that Leon beat Clara...and maybe his kids.  It’s really not a stretch, considering that he was arrested at least twice for getting into bar fights.  His brothers were no different.”

“Lloyd and Floyd?” Ben asked.

The lady nodded.  “The whole lot of them were nothing but hooligans.  Cheated on and beat their women, cheated people out of money…”

“My mom grew up with a father like that?  Guess I understand her silence now."

"It was sort of the talk of the town."  She looked at the empty lot.  "No one really knew what was going on in that house.  As gossipy as the town was, that was a well-kept secret.  Yet no one was surprised when they took Clara away."

"Took her away?  What do you mean?" Karen asked.

The lady turned around and looked at Karen.  "To an asylum.  Everyone said Leon tortured her so much that she went crazy."

"An asylum...just like Aunt Margaret..." Ben muttered as leaned over to pet the dog.

Karen's eyes grew wide, and she became completely silent.  Tim could feel her tense up as he held her.

"The firefighters dragged the three out of the house, but Clara and her oldest daughter kept trying to go back in."

“Back into a burning building?  Was there someone else left in there?” Tim inquired.

The lady shook her head.  “Nope.  I remember one fireman had your mom in his arms, and Leon was nowhere to be found, so…  Everyone said Clara was trying to kill the family and no fireman was going to stop her.  Makes sense considering what she kept yelling as the men were holding her back.  She kept screaming that he was going to kill her and that the whole town was to blame.  That’s why she ended up in the asylum.  She was delusional...I guess.”

Karen and Ben just stared at each other, not sure what to think about this development.

"Are Clara or Leon still alive?" Tim asked, thinking that if they were, Margaret could be with one of them.

"No.  Clara died in the asylum, and Leon was killed in a bank robbery in Omaha.  They're both buried in the cemetery just west of town."   

"Oh," Tim muttered, slightly disappointed that another lead was gone.  "And there's no other family left in town?"

The lady shook her head.  "The last of the Nielsen's died in the 50's, and Clara's mother died not long after her.  She was her only relative."

The trio stood and looked at each other, not sure what to think or do.  Finally Karen spoke up.

"Um...do you happen to know a couple named Koestler?" she asked.

"Jack and Lilly?  Sure, I remember them.  Lived just down the road," she answered as she pointed east.  "Their house was kind of like a community center for the kids in town.  Lilly always made sure we were clothed and fed and had a safe place to stay if we needed one.  Great couple.  I miss them."

"Miss them?  Did they die too?" Karen asked, the disappointment evident in her voice.

"No, no.  They moved out of state.  Over to Iowa I think.  Not sure why exactly, but I think it was not long after we heard that Clara died.  My mother would know for sure; she and Lilly were friends."

"So all the kids in town were close to the Koestler's?" Tim asked.

"Sure, from what I remember anyway."

Karen looked at her boyfriend.  "What are you thinking?"

"Their home was like a safe haven for the neighborhood kids, right?" Tim asked the lady.

She nodded.

"So maybe your Aunt would still feel like it was a safe place to go, even after all these years.  You know what I mean?"

Karen and Ben looked at each other and smiled.

"Do you know what town they moved to in Iowa?" Tim asked their new friend.

"No...but my mom does.  She and Lilly still talk, I'm pretty sure.  She just lives on the next street over if you want to ask her."

All three nodded.  Tim decided to walk over there with the lady, so he put Karen back in the car and took off, leaving her and Ben to discuss the possibility that they may be close to finding Amy.  They were both more optimistic now than they had been since they arrived in Bennington, but it was a cautious optimism.  Karen was still afraid that they’d find the same thing in Iowa that they found in Nebraska.

Twenty minutes later, Tim came walking back up the street alone.  When he got in the car, Karen immediately bombarded him with questions.

“What took you so long?  Did you get an address?  Do you really think these people will know anything?”

Tim reached over and put his hand over Karen’s mouth.  “Slow down, okay?”  He chuckled.

“How far away do they live?” Ben asked more calmly than Karen.

“They live in a town called Atlantic, which is about an hour from the Nebraska-Iowa border.  They showed me a map and gave me an address.  Shouldn’t be too hard to find the town or the house.  You guys up for a little road trip?”  


	24. Chapter 24

**_Friday, May 24, 1974_ **

As Tim drove east on Interstate 80 toward Atlantic, Karen continued to look over the photographs, although now with a different set of eyes.  

“So if what that lady said is true, then no wonder Mom looks happier in these photos with the Koestlers.  Her parents were nuts, and these people sound like they were sane.”

“It’s really no wonder your mom doesn’t talk about her childhood.  I don’t know a lot of people who want to admit that their mother was insane and their father was a bank robber,” Tim said.

“To be fair, she didn’t say he was the one robbing the bank,” Ben interjected.

“No, but she didn’t make him sound like a saint either.  Face it, Benjy, we have a family full of criminals.”  Karen visibly shivered at the thought.  

“I’m gonna look into it.  They may have been less that noble, but they certainly aren’t boring people.  Might be a good extra credit history project,” Ben said.

Karen rolled her eyes and looked at Tim.  “It’s almost summer vacation, yet he’s still thinking about extra credit projects.”  She paused before adding, “Though I would like to know all about these people.”

Both boys smiled.

Karen looked back down at her photographs.  “So if these people were like the town parents for the kids with crappy families, then how come Mom never mentions them either?  I can see her not saying anything about Leon and Clara, but Jack and Lillian?”

Tim shrugged.  “Maybe they’re too much of a reminder of everything that went on it that town.  Or, since they moved out of town, maybe she was upset that they left.  I mean, what _did_ happen to your mom after Clara went into the hospital and Leon died?  If it all happened around 1941, your mom would have been what, six, seven?”

Both Karen and Ben shrugged.  “Maybe there’s another relative we don’t know about.  I guess when we meet the Koestlers, we can ask.  Ben can put it in his report.”  

The three chuckled.  Karen then looked out at the corn fields along the interstate.  “There’s a whole lot of nothing in this state.  All I’ve seen since we left Omaha is field after field of...is that corn?”

Ben chuckled.  “Of course it’s corn.  Iowa is only the leading corn state in the nation.”

“Like I care what state grows what.”

“You should care every time you eat corn,” Ben told her.  “There’s a 21% chance it came from Iowa.”

Karen mouthed the word ‘nerd’ before adding, “I don’t eat corn, Smart Ass.”

“What are those chips you were eating yesterday made out of?” Ben asked.

“Those Fritos?  They’re corn chips, not...oh.”

Ben laughed heartily from the backseat.  Tim shook his head, but did crack a smile.  Being an only child, he wasn’t used to sibling bickering - and wasn’t sure he’d really missed anything.

"It's still a state full of nothing."  Karen dropped the subject of the blandness of Iowa's landscape and looked back out the window at a field of grazing cows.  "Mooooo," she muttered under her breath.

Half an hour later, Tim turned the car off Interstate 80 and onto Highway 71, driving south toward Highway 6 and the town of Atlantic, Iowa, a medium-sized town of roughly seven thousand.    

As Karen again watched the similar view from the two-lane highway, she asked Tim, "Why don't you talk about them?"

"Me?" he asked, not sure if she was talking to him or Ben.

"Yeah, you.  Why don't you talk about your parents?"

"What do you mean?  I've told you about them."

"I mean your real parents."

"They are my real parents."

Karen knew he was avoiding.  "Your birth parents.  The people before the Slaters."

Tim said nothing for several moments.  "Can't talk about people you know nothing about," he finally muttered.

Karen gave him a confused look.  "Didn't Mike tell you anything about them?  I mean, that's how you guys met in the first place, right?"

Tim simply uttered, "I was two; I don't remember anything."

Karen didn't seem to pick up on the disdain in Tim's voice, but Ben did.  "Sis, what does it matter?  People can not talk about whatever they want."

"Yeah, but didn't you ever wonder why Mike was in your life?  I mean, how many people have a spare dad-like guy hanging around?"

Ben could see Tim clenching his jaw.  "Karen, you need to learn when to drop things," he told his sister.

"He was a family friend.  That's all I knew.  Nothing else mattered."

"A family friend from San Francisco when your parents live in Los Angeles?  I dunno, you would have had to have questioned..."

Tim quickly cut her off.  Turning to her, he yelled, "Just drop it, okay?!"  He then snapped his head back forward and concentrated on the highway.

Karen stared at him in disbelief.  She'd never seen him that angry before.  Part of her was mad at him for yelling at her, but another part was scared.  Instead of pressing the issue further, she decided to spend the rest of the short trip into town staring at the countryside.

The drive on Highway 6 into town was a quiet one.  The only talking was done between Tim and Ben about finding the house.  Tim stopped briefly at a gas station to ask for directions.  They were only a few blocks from Cedar Street, so Tim hopped back in the car and headed west.  Turning left onto Cedar, he and Ben began looking for their address.  Upon finding it, Tim pulled the car to the curb and put it in park.  After turning off the engine, Tim told Karen to stay put, and he and Ben got out and walked to the front door.  

Karen rolled her window down and watched the guys knock on the door of the white 1920's-style two-story house.  She watched as they knocked and knocked but never got an answer.  With each knock, her spirits sank.

After knocking six times, Tim and Ben shrugged and walked away from the door.  Karen hung her head and fought off tears. On their way down the driveway, Ben saw that the next door neighbor was outside pruning a rose bush.  He pointed this out to Tim who decided to ask.

"Excuse me, Ma'am?  Do the Koestler's live here?"

The older lady turned to see her guest.  "Jack and Lilly?  Sure, but they're out of town today.  They went to Omaha to visit their granddaughter.  Poor thing is in the hospital."

"Oh," both boys uttered dejectedly.  "Um, do you know when they might be back?" Tim asked.

The lady wiped some sweat off her brow and thought.  "Probably late.  It's usually close to dark by the time they get home.  They like to spend as much time there as they can.  This granddaughter, she just recently came into their lives I guess, so I think they're making up for lost time."

Tim thought this sounded too coincidental not to somehow be related to Amy.  "Oh really?" Tim answered in the hopes that the woman would elaborate.

"Yeah.  I think they said she'd been out in California most of her life."

"Really?" Tim muttered, looking over at Ben.  "You know, that's actually who we're looking for anyway.  You don't happen to know what hospital she's in, do you?"

The lady shook her head.  "No, sorry.  I just know Omaha."

"That's alright; we'll find her.  Thank you so much!" Tim said enthusiastically as he put his hands on Ben's shoulders and guided him down the driveway.

"We were just in Omaha," the young man whined.

"So?  Now we'll go back.  It has to be Amy in that hospital.  This isn't just some lame coincidence."  Tim pushed Ben toward the passenger's side back door before walking around the front of the car and getting in.

After sitting down behind the wheel, he looked over at Karen, who was still staring out the side window at the Koestler's house.

"You hear all that?" Tim asked, his attitude much better than it had been toward her.

She only nodded.

Tim glanced back at Ben.  "Uh...I thought you'd be a little more excited.  This very well could be Amy," he said to Karen.

"Someone is in that house.  While you were talking to that lady, someone peeked through the living room curtains.  They were trying not to be seen, but I saw it.  Someone is in that house!"

Tim started the car.  "Well, whoever it is, we're leaving them here."

Karen didn't take her eyes off the house.

"You okay with going back to Omaha?" Tim asked.

Karen nodded but didn't turn around.  "Of course.  Let's go."

Tim shook his head and put the car in drive.

"Before we leave, can we stop and get something to drink?  All these Coke signs are making me thirsty," Ben said.

"We should grab some corn, too," Karen added jokingly while still not turning away from the house.

Tim chuckled as he drove down the street and back toward the highway that led out of the self-proclaimed Coca-Cola Capital of Iowa.

* * *

Freshly-caffeinated and full of corn chips, the group rolled back into Omaha an hour later.  The first order of business was to find a phone book and locate hospitals.

“Well, Omaha is a lot smaller than San Francisco, right?  So there can’t be too many hospitals to check.  A couple maybe?” Karen commented as Tim pulled up to a phone booth located outside a grocery store.  

He got out of the car and grabbed the book, which was loosely sitting under the phone.  Karen put her hand out the window like she wanted him to give it to her, so he did.  She flipped to the yellow pages and located the hospitals section.

Dragging her finger on the page, she groaned and said, “Nine?!  There are nine hospitals in this city?”

“Guess it’s not so small after all,” Ben quipped.

Karen opened the car door and made like she was going to get out.

“What are you doing?” Tim asked, grabbing the phone book from her.

“I’m getting out of this car so that I can start making phone calls.  Do you have any dimes?”

“Calls to where?” he asked, not making a move to help her out of the car.

“The nine hospitals!  Well, eight I guess.  One of them is a kids’ hospital.  She’s probably not there.”

“What good is that going to do?”

Karen gave him an _Are you kidding me?_ look.  “I’m going to call and ask for the room number of an Amy Johnson. If they tell me one, bam, we’ve found her!  Now help me up!”

Tim reached out his hand to her.  “What if they won’t give out that information?”

“I’ll start crying,” Karen said as she hoisted herself up on her left leg.  "People don't like dealing with a crying woman, so they'll give me whatever I want to get me off the phone."

“The better question is, what do you do if you find more than one Amy Johnson?” Ben asked as Karen got steady on her foot.

She turned and looked at him.  “Why would that happen?”

Ben shrugged.  “Amy Johnson is a pretty common name.  I bet you can even find a few in that book.”  He pointed at the phone book in Tim’s hand.

Tim was curious, so he opened the book and flipped to the J’s.  There he found a long list of Johnson’s...and a pretty long list of Amy’s.  “There are twenty Amy Johnson’s, and that’s just in Omaha.  There are probably more in the suburbs.”

Karen sighed.  “Look, you two.  That’s not gonna happen.  What are the odds that any of those Amy’s are in the hospital right now?  Huh?  Gimme some dimes.”

Both Tim and Ben dug through their pockets and pulled out enough dimes to call all the hospitals in town.  For the next half hour, Karen half stood on one leg and half leaned against the booth making call after call.  Tim and Ben hung out by the car in the Midwest humidity, something they both thought was awfully stifling.  

After making her last call to Creighton Memorial St. Joseph’s, Karen turned around and looked at her traveling companions.  “I hate you two.”

“Why?” Tim asked.  “Was he right?”

Karen nodded.  “There’s one at the Nebraska University Hospital, one at Bishop Clarkson Memorial, and one at Methodist.  They couldn’t give me any information on them, like how old they are or anything, so I guess we’ll have to take a random shot...unless one of you geniuses has a better idea.”

Tim and Ben, who were leaning against the driver’s side of the car, looked at each other.

“You got anything?” Tim asked Ben.

Ben shook his head.  “You?”

“Not a thing.  Guess we’ll get to know Omaha pretty well though.”

* * *

First hospital they stopped at, NUH, was a bust.  The Amy Johnson there was a kindly middle-aged woman recovering from gallbladder surgery.  She did wish Tim, the only one who went in, well in his search.

Their next stop was to Bishop Clarkson Memorial which was another bust.  The teenage Amy Johnson that Ben found was annoyed at the intrusion at first, but soon decided that Ben was cute and tried to get him to stay. This caused Tim to have to run in and see what was causing the delay of Ben coming back to the car.  Before Tim dragged him out of the room, the girl gave Ben her phone number and told him if he was ever in Omaha again to call her.  Tim ribbed him about it all the way to the lobby but decided to lie to Karen and tell her that he had trouble finding someone to help Ben.  Fortunately for them both, she readily believed the lie.

Lastly, they headed to Methodist.  After parking the car, Tim and Ben decided to arm wrestle on the hood of the car to see who would go in and check this Amy Johnson.  

“Guys, we’re all going in.  This is our last chance - if this Amy isn’t our Amy, then we’re screwed anyway, so we might as well all go in.  Get my wheelchair out of the trunk,” Karen told them.  

Both guys realized she was right, so they grabbed the wheelchair, unfolded it, and after Karen sat down, headed toward the main entrance.  

The receptionist had told Karen that there was an Amy in room 618, so once in the elevator, Ben pushed the button for the sixth floor and leaned back against the wall.

Karen took a deep breath.  “This has to be her...it just has to.”

No one else said anything else on the ride up - no one wanted to even entertain the idea that they’d find another unknown Amy.

The elevator doors parted and the trio stepped off.  They headed toward where the signs on the wall said room 618 was located.  Upon arrival at the destination, they found the door to the room open.

“I don’t see anything,” Ben said quietly as he looked in the room from the hallway.

“Can we just walk in?” Tim asked.

“The door’s open, so heck yes we can just walk in!” Karen insisted.

Tim and Ben looked at each other.  “Why don’t you lead?” Tim suggested to his young friend.

“This was all her idea.  Make her go first,” Ben insisted, a certain amount of apprehension in his voice.

Karen, getting fed up, started wheeling herself into the room, albeit slowly since she didn’t have full use of her right arm.  Tim and Ben simply followed her into the room.  Once inside, they all saw something they never expected.


	25. Chapter 25

**_Friday, May 24, 1974_ **

The end of Jasmine’s bed had a perfect view out her bedroom window of the front of the house.  All day she’d been lying and watching the families of her housemates come and go for Parents’ Weekend.  She was sad because she knew no one was coming for her, so she stayed staring out the window - hugging the teddy bear Jeannie had bought her - at all the happiness she figured she’d never have.  She was relieved to be out of Arizona, but the loneliness she felt in southern California was only slightly better.

Around two, Patricia came in to check on her.

"What are you doing?" she asked softly.

"Just watching," Jasmine said, her voice stifled by the teddy bear.

Patricia sat down on the edge of Jasmine's bed.  "It's been busy, hasn't it?  To tell you the truth, I'm glad almost everyone is gone.  Having all those people in this small house was getting to me.  Elisa and her parents are still here though."  She paused.  "Can I tell you a secret?"

Jasmine nodded.

"I wish they'd leave and never come back.  They're not very nice."

Jasmine chuckled.  "Just like Elisa."

"Exactly.  Say, I thought that maybe once they left, you and I could go out and get something to eat, maybe go find something fun to do.  What do you say?"

Jasmine sat up, giving up on her window gazing, and turned to Patricia.  "Okay," she said, though it wasn't exactly full of enthusiasm.

Patricia stood up.  "Sounds like a plan."  She then turned and left the room, leaving Jasmine to lay back down and hug her teddy bear once more.

As Patricia headed toward the stairs with a devilish grin on her face, she ran into her husband, who looked fit to be tied.

"Are they ever gonna leave?  God they're obnoxious!"  He looked at his watch.  "We're supposed to meet my parents at three.  When is her family getting here?" he asked, pointing toward Jasmine's room.

Patricia put her hands on David's shoulders.  "Calm down.  It's only a little after two.  Mr. Keller's flight landed an hour or so ago, so they should be here shortly.  And as for Elisa's parents...just go annoy the hell out of ‘em until they leave."

"I don't know if I'm very good at that."

"At what, being annoying?  Oh, Honey...you're better than you think."  With that slight insult, Patricia walked by her husband and down the stairs, leaving him to wonder what she meant by the statement.

For the next twenty minutes, Patricia and David sat listening to Elisa and her parents go on and on about how fabulous they were.  They had been to places no one else had been and done things no one else had done.  Patricia kept shooting David looks, wondering when he was going to start his annoying act.  He just sat with his arms crossed over his lap, repeatedly checking his watch.

Just when Patricia had had enough, the doorbell rang.  "Oh thank God," she muttered under her breath as she jumped up and ran to the door.

"Mr. Keller?" she asked the young man standing on the front steps.

He nodded.  "Guess we got the right house.  You must be Patricia."

She nodded.  Steve stepped in the house and the two shook hands.  "I am so glad you could make it!  This will be the best surprise!" Patricia exclaimed.

Steve then introduced Mike and Jeannie to Patricia, who shook their hands as well before escorting them into the living room.  She quickly introduced David, Elisa, and her parents before running upstairs to get Jasmine.

The five adults were cordial, but it was obvious to Steve, Mike, and Jeannie that these people thought they were the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Elisa walked up to Steve, who, along with the Stones, had taken a seat on the couch.  

"You must be the one she talks about all the time," Elisa said to him.  "Ugh!  She never shuts up!  What makes you so great anyway?  My father is better..."

David, of all people, quickly cut her off.  "Elisa!  That is very rude!  You apologize to Mr. Keller this instant!"

"Mister Jorgensen!" Elisa's mother gasped as she and her husband leapt out of their chairs.  "I'll thank you not to talk to my daughter that way.  It is not your place to discipline her.  Come here, Sweetie," she cooed as her daughter came and gave her mother a hug and some crocodile tears.

Jeannie rolled her eyes and looked at her father.   _Disgusting_ , she mouthed to him.  He simply nodded.

David had had enough.  He couldn't stand the way Elisa treated Jasmine or how she got the rest of the kids in the house to gang up on her.  Most of all, he couldn't stand her parents and wanted the whole family out of his house.  

He stood up and looked the woman in the eyes.  "Look.  You leave your kids here for months at a time expecting someone else to raise them, yet you have the nerve to tell me not to discipline her?!  Someone has to!  It's obvious you don't, considering what a spoiled brat she is!  You should see how mean she is to his daughter!”

“Jasmine’s weird, Mama.  She doesn’t talk...and she draws creepy pictures!” Elisa blurted out.  

Steve put his face in his hands and Jeannie sighed.  She had seen the so-called creepy pictures, and they still made her sad.

“Those are the kind of children this school is accepting now?”  Elisa’s mother shook her head in disgust.  “Everything good in this country is being taken over by low-class proletariats.  My money can’t even buy my daughter the education she deserves.  She’s forced to live around children with obvious sinister motives.”

Steve quickly rose out of his seat and got into the woman’s face.  “My daughter does not have sinister motives!  Your kid on the other hand…”

Mike leapt up and guided Steve back down to the couch in order to avoid a confrontation.  While he too wanted to personally kick these snobs right out the front door, he knew a scene would do no one any good.  He read people well - he knew there were no words that would change their attitudes.

“Like father, like daughter I see,” the woman muttered.

Mike had to practically sit on Steve’s lap to keep him on the couch.

Elisa looked up at her mother.  “In the middle of the night, she stares at me like she’s gonna kill me!  And!  Her eyes glow!  I think she’s one of the kids from _Village of the Damned_!”

“You’ve seen _Village of the Damned_?  At your age?!” Jeannie exclaimed before looking up at Elisa’s mother.  “Shame on you!”

David looked at Jeannie and said, “Don’t blame her - she doesn’t parent in the first place.”

The woman glared at him.  “Administration will hear about your attitude and insults,” she threatened before dragging her milquetoast husband out of the room.

Elisa kicked David in the shin before stomping out of the room.  Before the trio left the house, everyone in the living room heard her screech, “Mama, I wanna go to another school!  Now!”

The four left in the living room then heard the front door slam.  

“I can only hope,” David winced as he sat down and rubbed his leg.  He then apologized for his outburst.  “I have a real problem with entitled children, and she is the worst I have ever seen.  And then she gets all the rest of the kids in the house to turn on Jasmine and treat her like dirt.  I guess I just reached my breaking point.”

“You don’t need to apologize to me.  I’d never send a six year old off to a boarding school...no offense,” Steve said.

David shook his head.  “None taken - I wouldn’t either.  Trish thought this job would be a great topic for her Master’s thesis and my sociology studies.  I'm not saying she was wrong, but I don’t think either of us expected a kid like Elisa."

“Your wife said that Jasmine hasn’t said much since she arrived…” Steve prompted.

David nodded.  “And it’s not just because of her trial by fire.  Not sure what she’s been through, but it obviously scarred her pretty badly.  She’s quiet and withdrawn.  All she wants to do is stay in her room and draw pictures and write in her journal.  I have to say though, she seems to be a very intelligent child.  She's become Trish's pet project.  I think she wants to save her.  Future therapist thing I guess."

While Steve, Mike, and Jeannie filled David in on a bit of Jasmine’s background, Patricia was upstairs trying to get Jasmine to come downstairs.  When she got to the bedroom, Jasmine was lying on her stomach and writing in her journal.  

Jasmine, who was still wearing a pink, short-sleeved baby doll nightgown, looked up at Patricia.  “Time to go?”

“Almost.  I have a surprise for you first though.”

Jasmine scrunched up her face.  “A surprise?  No thanks.”  She looked back down at her work.

Patricia was surprised at her reaction.  “You don’t want it?  You don’t even know what it is.”

Jasmine was quiet for a moment before explaining.  “He would always come in my room at night and ask me if I wanted a surprise.  I said yes once.  He started taking off his pants.”

Patricia’s eyes grew wide.  “Uh...he?  He who?”

“Uncle...whatever his name is.  I wish he would die," Jasmine said with no remorse.

Patricia gulped and took a deep breath.  “Did he do anything else?”

Jasmine shook her head.  “No, cuz I’d scream.  That made him leave.”

Patricia was overcome with relief.  “Well...don’t worry.  This is a good surprise.”

“No thanks,” Jasmine answered.

“Are you sure?  I know you’ll really like it!”

“That’s what he said too.  I didn’t,” she said very seriously.

Patricia turned around and headed back downstairs.  She caught the beginning of Steve and Mike’s tale of Jasmine’s last few weeks and chose to listen to it instead of interrupting and sending Steve upstairs.  

“Oh dear God...no wonder she’s in a shell,” she said after the story was finished.  “Poor baby.”

“Is she coming?” Steve asked, wondering why she was still upstairs.

Patricia shook her head.  “I went up there and told her I had a surprise for her.  She says she didn’t want it because her uncle…apparently he’d go into her room at night and ask if she wanted a surprise.  Then he’d…”  She couldn’t bring herself to say it.  “He’d...take his pants off.”

She saw the disturbed looks on everyone’s faces, so she tried to assuage their fears.  “She said she’d scream and he’d leave.  I don’t think anything actually happened.”

Steve closed his eyes and took a deep breath before he completely lost it.  “Michael...remind me to call my lawyer later.”  He then stood up and asked Patricia which room was Jasmine’s before heading upstairs.

* * *

He stood at her door for a few seconds, watching her lackadaisically doodle in her journal.  Content to hang back momentarily, he allowed his thoughts to go back to when he had first met the girl.  She had been exuberant around him and when she talked about Amy, but he had sensed a deeper sadness within her.  It was a sadness he saw in her eyes when she peeked her head around the corner as he and Mike interviewed Janice Duncan.  It slowly faded the more she and he talked and was completely gone by the time Mike came to “rescue” him from his tea party.  In the fifteen minutes she had known him, she decided she could trust him enough to be her unguarded self, eventually anointing him Daddy and turning to him in a crisis.  

He admittedly didn't understand it, but he didn't shy away from it either.  He took to the girl like she had always been a part of his life.  He worried about her like any father would even if he had barely done anything fatherly.  Perhaps it was the fact that she needed him that sold him on the whole situation; it was half of his attraction to Amy after all.  She needed him to be her knight in shining armor and so did Jasmine.  He liked being wanted, and these two wanted him more than any person ever had.  For the first time in his adult life - outside of the affection the Stones had always shown him - he truly felt loved.  He smiled.  Maybe he didn't understand his sudden relationship with this six year old - but he wasn't sure he needed an explanation.

As he stood there thinking, Jasmine was also deep in concentration, so after he came back to the present, Steve wandered into the room a couple feet.  She still did not notice his presence.

“Have you been spying on people again, Young Lady?” he asked, referring to her journaling.

Jasmine dropped her pencil; it hit the notebook with a thud.  She looked straight ahead and didn’t move.  After giving her brain time to realize that yes, Steve could actually be there, she turned her head and confirmed that what she had heard was accurate.  She screamed the word “Daddy” and leapt off the bed, transitioning into a combination of happiness and sadness as tears started to fall.  

Steve picked her up and the two stood in a tight embrace for several moments.  Jasmine cried into his neck and muttered incomprehensible gibberish.  He kept telling her that everything was fine now and she didn’t need to cry, but he knew it was pointless.  She had been through hell and needed to get her emotions out in the open.  He soon set her down on the bed and knelt in front of her.  

“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” Jasmine said between hyperventilated breaths.

Steve pushed some hair away from her face.  “You didn’t really think we were going to leave you forever, did you?”

Jasmine just shrugged as she choked and coughed on her own tears.

“Well, Mommy and I are going to do everything we can to get you back home with us, okay?”

“Are you taking me home right now?”  She looked at him with pleading in her eyes.

“No, not today, but we do get to spend the whole weekend together.  Is that okay?”

Jasmine sniffed and nodded.  Steve pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to her.  As she blotted and blew, he stood up and sat down next to her on the bed.

“So how did you end up here?” he asked, trying to fill in the missing pieces of the story.  “Did they find out you were calling me?”

Jasmine nodded again.  “But that’s not all.  I told that witch nanny about how Uncle What’s-His-Name kept trying to do creepy things, and she told Aunt Bea, and she got all mad and yelled at me.  I also found all the stuff she hid from me.  That made her mad too.  Then she threw all my stuff in my suitcase and drove me here.”

She looked up at Steve.  “Where am I anyway?  Am I still in Arizona?  We were in the car a long time."

Steve put his right arm around her and she laid her head on his side.  “No, you’re back in California, which is good, because now you’re closer to us.”

“San Francisco?”

“No, Los Angeles.”

“That’s where Mommy’s from, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

“Is she here?”

Steve sighed and paused.  “No...she’s still in the hospital.  But she hopes to get out very soon.  Then we’ll go talk to the judge and tell him everything that happened.”  He stared at his lap through the entire lie.

“Then I can finally go home with you guys?”

He looked back at her.  “I sure hope so.  You’ll have to tell the judge everything that happened at that house though.  Can you do that?”

Jasmine turned and grabbed the journal that was sitting on the bed behind her.  She handed it to him.  “I wrote it all down.”

Steve smiled as he took the book in his left hand and set it down next to him.  “That’s my girl."

The two sat in silence for a moment until Jasmine looked up at Steve.  "Did Elisa leave?"

"Yeah, finally.  I heard she's pretty mean to you."

“She is.  She’s like Michelle from my old school, but meaner.  Everyone here hates me.  Well, Miss Trish and Dave are nice.  And my teacher.  You know what she said?”

“What?”

“She said that I’m so good at reading and writing that I should skip first grade!  She never told Elisa that because Elisa’s dumb.”

Steve gave her a very parental scolding look.  “Jasmine…”

“Sorry.  I am smarter than her though.  I showed my teacher some of my writing, and she said I write like a second grader."

"That's great, Sweetheart!  Mommy's always said you were smart.  Do you like going to school here...or would you rather go to school in San Francisco?"

"Do you think I could be in second grade there?"

"I don't know."

Jasmine was quiet for several seconds.  "No one in my class here talks to me but this girl who talks some other language.  I have no idea what she says, but she'll sit next to me at lunch and swing with me at recess.  I'd rather be dumb there with friends than smart here with no one to play with."

Steve wasn't wild about her wording, but he got the meaning just the same.  "We'll do our best to make that happen."

This time it was Steve who was quiet.  He finally asked her, "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Talk about what?"

"Arizona.  Anything that happened since the last time you called me...or anything you didn't tell me."

Jasmine didn't answer right away.  "Not today," she finally said in barely a whisper.

"Okay.  But you know you can tell me anything, and I won't be mad, right?"

Jasmine simply nodded before changing the subject.  “You get to stay the whole weekend?”

“Mmm hmm.”

“And I get to stay with you the whole weekend?  I don't have to stay here?”

“Yeah.  Why do you ask?”

She turned and looked up at Steve.  “I overheard a couple of the boys talking yesterday, and they were gonna go do fun things with their families, like go to Disneyland, and…”

Steve grinned.  “I think we may save Disneyland for when Mommy’s here, how ‘bout that?”  He didn’t feel like tackling something quite so exhaustive, even if he did have Mike and Jeannie’s assistance.

“Yeah...she’d wanna go too.  Can we do fun things though?”

“Absolutely.  Jeannie was reading an article on fun things to do in L.A. on the plane, so we can come up with something.”

“Jeannie came with you?  Did Grampa come too?!”  Jasmine’s eyes lit up.

“They did.  In fact, they’re probably wondering where we are, so we should get going so we can get all this fun started.  Looks like you need to get dressed first though.”

Jasmine looked down at herself.  "Oh.  Hey!  I can wear one of the new outfits Jeannie got me!  She got me pretty stuff, Daddy.  She's good at shopping, just like Mommy.  She's pretty like Mommy too."

Steve smiled.  "I'm glad you two got along so well.  Go pick an outfit and get dressed," he said, standing up.  "And grab some things to wear tomorrow and Sunday.  I'll go wait downstairs in the living room.  When you're ready, come down."

Before he could get out the door, Jasmine threw herself around his legs.  "This is gonna be the BEST weekend ever!"  She then ran over to her closet and began pulling out clothes.

He smiled.   _It better be_ , he thought, _because Lord knows what we'll find in Omaha_.  Then he sighed and left the room.  If he thought about the possibility of a bleak outcome in Jasmine's presence, he would show emotions he would rather not display.


	26. Chapter 26

**_Friday, May 24, 1974_ **

“There’s no one here!” Karen exclaimed as she stared at an empty bed.

“This is worse than finding the wrong Amy,” Ben muttered.

“Now, now, calm down.  It’s not worse...it’s not anything.”  Tim peeked his head in the bathroom but found it as empty as the rest of the room.

“Yeah...it’s not Amy,” Karen growled.

“We don’t know that.  It could be her, but the doctors have her out of the room.”

“It’s an empty room!” she shouted back.

Tim rolled his eyes.  “Look around!  There’s a newspaper on the bed, a cup on the table, and look,” he said, walking over to the closet.  “Clothes in the closet!  This stuff wouldn’t be here if the room was truly empty.  Hell, there wouldn’t be messed up sheets on the bed!”

Karen rolled her wheelchair over into the corner of the room.  “Okay, so now what then?”

Tim glanced over to the opposite corner and saw a chair.  “We’re going to wait until the room’s occupant comes back.  If it is your cousin, she’s probably out getting x-rays or something.  Her injuries were similar to yours, right?  I’m sure she’s had lot of x-rays, and they can’t do those in the room.  Pull up a chair, Ben.”

Ben took one that was sitting against the wall and dragged it across to the room.  He placed it next to his sister and sat down.  Karen let out an audible sigh.  

Half an hour passed with no one saying anything.  Karen played with her hair in an effort to keep her mind busy, Tim tapped his foot and used his lap as a drum set, and Ben played with the TV.  The elephant in the room kept growing, but no one wanted to acknowledge its existence.  Karen eventually grew bored with her hair and started shifting in her wheelchair and tapping her fingers on the armrest as time crawled and the elephant grew.  Tim voiced his displeasure by shooting her dirty looks, which she ignored.  

While she was annoying Tim, she looked all around the room.  She began to wonder if there was anything in the room that would point to a definitive answer one way or the other.  She had learned from Steve and Mike that all of Amy’s personal belongings had been left in the hospital room in San Francisco, but she wondered if there was anything that would say to her, “Yes, Amy is here.”  

From her seat in the corner, Karen tried to see into the closet, which was in the wall across from her and to her right.  Though her sight was limited, nothing she could see stood out to her.  The rest of the room had a very impersonal feel to it - nothing but medical equipment and hospital furnishings.  She smacked the armrest of her chair and looked straight ahead, sulking.  However, this made her notice the bed and a table beside the bed.  There were papers on both - papers that, Karen thought, might tell her something.   

She sat up straight and had Tim help her out of the wheelchair.  She then hopped over to the bed and plopped down.

"Why are you sitting there?  It'll look a little weird if a complete stranger comes in and finds you sitting on the end of her bed," Ben said, finally turning his attention away from the television.

Karen took a deep breath.  “I’m gonna believe that it won’t be an issue, okay?  Because it won’t.  It can’t.”

Ben shrugged and began pacing the floor.  Karen looked at her options of reading material and chose the newspaper at the foot of the bed.  Grabbing it, she turned it over to see the front page.  She gasped when she saw it was an issue of the _San Francisco Chronicle_.

“Ah!  Look!  This has to be definitive proof - beyond a reasonable doubt kind of proof!”  She proceeded to hold up the paper and show the boys.

“An issue of _The Chronicle_?  So?” Tim asked.

Ben understood Karen’s excitement.  “But we’re in Omaha - a good fifteen hundred miles from San Francisco.  I’m sure most people around here read the...whatever Omaha’s paper is.”

Tim suddenly caught Karen’s earlier bout of skepticism.  "That doesn't prove anything.  Anyone could want to read _The Chronicle_ ; it's a good paper."

Karen and Ben glanced at each other.  "You've never lived in San Francisco, Benjy, and you have this odd habit of reading newspapers.  What's your paper of choice?" Karen asked her brother.

" _The Wall Street Journal_."

Karen sighed loudly.  "Not that... Any other paper you like?"

" _The New York Times_ .  I read it in the school library every morning.  I'd do the crossword if they'd let me write in it, but they have this stupid rule about not writing in the newspapers.  Like anyone else there could even do the _Times_ crossword."

Tim laughed as Karen clenched her fist and jaw.

"At home!  What do you read at home?!" she practically shouted.

" _The Los Angeles Times_."  His answer came with a smirk.

"Not _The Chronicle_?"

Ben shook his head.  "Can't say I read that one."

She turned to Tim.  "See!  Only a person from San Francisco would read _The Chronicle_."

"He reads two papers from New York City, and he's never lived there either...have you?" he asked Ben.

"No...but technically I just read _The Wall Street Journal_ to see how my stocks are doing.  I read _The New York Times_ for the editorials and opinions.  I don't read them for any local news.  I mean, what do I care about the day to day happenings of some city I don't live in?"

"Which is why you read _The L.A. Times_ , right?" Karen prompted.

"Sure."

"So it's safe to say that someone from Omaha wouldn't care what's happening in San Francisco...but someone from San Francisco would!”

"But that doesn't prove anything," Tim reminded her.

Karen glared at him.  “You’ve been Mr. Positive all day.  What happened?”

"I’m just being realistic.  If I’m too positive, and this turns out to be a dead end, you’ll never let me hear the end of it.  I don’t really need that.”

Ben snickered.

“Look, it's not definitive proof of anything... but it's still a good sign.  It’s better than if it was _The Omaha World-Herald_.”

Karen nodded slowly.  “Okay...point taken.”  She turned her attention back to newspaper in her hand but quickly went back to Tim.

“How’d you know that?”

“Know what?”

“The name of Omaha’s newspaper?  Did you make that up?”

“I saw it on a billboard and the side of a bus.  You didn’t?”

Karen just rolled her eyes and looked at her brother.  “I’d expect that out of you, but not him.”

Ben shrugged and explained, "Police officers are trained to notice everything," before going back to his TV watching and pacing.

Karen glanced back at her boyfriend.  "And you don't think you can be a cop, Mr. Overly-Observant," she muttered under her breath but loud enough for Tim to hear every word.

He shot her a look.  "Don't go there," was his only reply.

Karen shook her head and went back to the newspaper.  She first looked over the front page but didn’t find anything interesting to read, so she turned it over to the back page.  This gave Tim the perfect view of the front.

Bored, he tried reading the paper, but more than headlines caught his eye.

“You know, this paper _really_ doesn’t prove anything.  It’s fake.”

Karen put the issue down.  “It’s what?”

“It’s not a real issue of _The Chronicle_.”

This caught Ben’s attention.  He turned from the TV and wandered over to stand by Tim.  “What makes you think it’s fake?” he asked earnestly.

Karen turned the paper around and looked at the front.  “Looks normal to me.”

“Like you’d know.  Can you even read?” Ben cracked.

Karen stuck out her tongue.  “Okay, so I’m not into current events...and no, I don't read _The Chronicle_ often.  Hell, I don’t even read _The Daily Californian_ , and I know people who write for it.  However, I did pass a machine that sold _The Chronicle_ every day on my way to the bus.  I know what the paper looks like, and there’s nothing weird about this.”

Tim put out his hand for Karen to give him the paper.  She folded it and threw it in his direction.  After he picked it up off the floor, he examined the front page closely, specifically looking at the banner and masthead.

“So what is it?  The ink just a shade too light...or the words are offset by a quarter of a millimeter, right?” Karen expressed sarcastically.

“Actually...I think either may be true.  I don’t think this is the right typeface either.  It’s close, but not exact.”

Karen looked at her brother who just shrugged and bent down to get a better look at the paper Tim was holding.  “Like I said before - observant.”

“There is no way in hell that you could tell this is a phony.  Absolutely no way,” Karen grumbled.

Tim looked up at her.  “You say you can tell this is authentic because you looked at copies in a box every day before getting on a bus.  I sat across from this paper every morning until I was sixteen.  All I ever saw was the front and back pages as I sat across from my dad eating breakfast.  He wasn’t much for talking in the morning, and I got bored sitting there listening to the sound of my own chewing, so I looked at the paper.  Every damn morning I looked at these words,” he explained, pointing to the words _San Francisco Chronicle_ and the dateline underneath.  “I could recreate this typeface in my sleep.  This...this is not legit.”  

“Okay, fine,” Karen sighed, “but answer me this - why would Amy, or anyone, have a fake copy of a newspaper in their hospital room?  Why would anyone make a fake newspaper?!”  She yanked the paper out of Tim’s hands and looked at the cover.  “I mean, what point is there in faking an article on the crappy school system?  Or were they trying to change the outcome of the Giants game?”

“I think the better question is if this _is_ a fake, who could have made it?” Ben added.

“Well, that question is easy to answer,” Tim replied, looking at Ben.  “I don’t know about anywhere else, but there’s a guy in Chinatown who’s well-known for forging any document you could ever want, including newspapers.”

"San Francisco's Chinatown?" Karen asked in disbelief.

Tim nodded.  "The guy's legendary.  One of the instructors at the academy used him as an example of the kinds of things Vice deals with.  Seriously - this guy can reproduce almost anything to near authentic quality.  He and his associates have saturated the Bay Area with so much fake merchandise and identification that it almost outnumbers legitimate products."

"They know about this guy, but he's not in jail?" Karen wondered.  "That doesn't make sense."

"The guy's a ghost.  The department has rounded up several of his associates, but they never give up the boss.  He's smart - he knows how to stay under the radar.  But this...this definitely looks like his work."

"Alright.  So some random criminal made a fake copy of the May 9th issue of _The Chronicle_ for what purpose, Mr. Future Inspector?" Karen said.

Tim said nothing for a moment.  "It's just a guess of course...nothing you can take to the bank or anything..."

"You don't have to put caveats on it - this isn't an official investigation," Ben told him.

Tim paused again.  "There must be something in there, a fake article or something, that someone wanted Amy - or whoever - to see.  Convince her something happened that didn't.  What we really need is a real copy of that issue to make a comparison."  He took the paper back and opened it, glancing quickly at the blurbs on page two.

"That’s just...crazy.”  Karen then blew air out her nose loudly.  “But then nothing that’s happened in the last month has been normal, has it?  Okay, so where the heck do you get a two week old copy of an out of town newspaper?"

"I think you'd almost be better off calling _The Chronicle_ and asking them about it," Ben mentioned.  "Some bored copy boy might be willing to go through it article by article."

No one said anything for a couple minutes.  "Since the likelihood of finding the real deal in Omaha is slim to none, I guess that's our best bet."  Tim folded up the paper, stood up, and looked at his watch.  "What's the time difference between here and there, two hours?"

Ben nodded.  Tim asked the two Lane siblings for dimes and, taking the paper with him, headed out to find a phone and call San Francisco.

In the meantime, Karen and Ben stayed behind and looked around the room.  She had him look more thoroughly through anything that was in plain sight, but nothing pointed to the identity of the room's occupant.  Karen and Ben were both curious about the stack of _Omaha World-Heralds_ sitting next to the bed - some recent issues and some dating back to the 40's - but a quick glance through the issues resulted only in more questions.

Frustrated and out of ideas, Ben wandered over to the window, looking out at the city below.  Karen attempted to get off the bed without losing her balance.  Once on the ground, she looked at her wheelchair, which despite being only a few feet away, seemed more like miles - very exhausting miles.

"I am so sick of being an infant," she growled.  "Screw you, Paul, wherever your worthless soul is."

"Do you want help?" Ben asked as he turned away from the window.

"How can you help?  You can't carry me.  I can't lean on you because my right arm is broken.  They won't even let me put a toe on the ground with my right leg.  I'll probably never walk again."  She let out a loud sigh.  "Dammit!  This is so frustrating!"

Ben simply nodded and took his sister's left hand in an attempt to help her over to the chair.

Both were looking down at the floor when they heard another sigh.

"Alright, I get it.  You're frustrated.  No need to keep trying to get sympathy from me," Ben told her.

She looked up at him.  "What are you talking about?  You're the one acting like I'm a huge burden.  'Sigh.  I have to help her again.  Shoot me.'"

"What?  I didn't sigh, you did."

Karen glared at him.  "No I didn't!  You did!"

They stood and scowled at each other until they heard another voice.

"I know it's hard," a female voice said from the hallway, "but you need to try.  Using the crutch will help keep your left leg strong while the right one heals.  You'll be glad of that later."

Both Lane kids snapped their heads toward the door.  Karen kept a hold of Ben's hand while she balanced on one leg and watched the hallway.

"I know," another female voice, this one very familiar, whined.  "But I'm tired, and my wrist aches...and everything else hurts."

Ben squeezed Karen's hand as she gasped.  Small streams of salty water ran down her cheeks.  The waiting and wondering was over.

"It's just to the bed.  I'll be right here if you need me," the unfamiliar voice said.

After a few moments - and a few pained grunts and a small coughing fit - a middle-aged nurse stepped in the room flanked by a very weak and thinner-looking Amy.  

She looked terrible.  In addition to the full-length leg brace and cast on her left wrist, her face was gaunt, her skin was ashen, and her long-sleeved pajama top and matching shorts seemed two sizes too large.  Even her hair seemed to lack any luster it once had as it laid flat against her scalp.  The only positive was that her facial bruises and lacerations had faded.  Her appearance suggested that she had been through some kind of hell Karen had never imagined.

Karen tried to keep her emotions quiet and at bay, but they had other ideas.  She let out a bit of a squeak which caused Amy and her nurse to look up.  Once the cousins locked eyes, there wasn’t a dam strong enough to hold back the waterworks.

In an awkward moment of getting two women who couldn’t walk into the same space, the nurse and Ben did their best to support the two so that they could hop toward each other and finally embrace, which they did for a solid five minutes.  

“Not really my place,” the nurse started as she looked at Ben, “but what’s going on?  I mean, they both look like they were in the same car accident.  Were they?”

“Car accident?” Ben questioned.  “What car accident?”

The nurse, whom Ben noticed was named Joy, gave him a quizzical and surprised look.  “Amy was in a car accident.  Her grandparents brought her here after finding her car in a ravine out in the country.  I guess she'd been there for a few days.  Poor thing was malnourished and weak and had a pretty bad case of pneumonia.  You didn't know?"

Ben stammered through a lie.  "We...we just heard she was in the hospital.  We're, uh, we're from Los Angeles, and we just got this quick call to come out here.  Didn't think to ask questions, ya know?"

Joy nodded.  "Ah.  So you guys are...?"

"Cousins.  I'm Ben, that's Karen, my sister."

Joy nodded again, but this time added a smile.  "I'm glad you're here.  Amy's spirits have been really down, and I think it's impeding her progress.  It's like she doesn't care if she gets better."

Joy left Ben's side so that she could attempt to break up the reunion and get her patient back to bed.  Ben stood and tried to reason why Amy would act like she would rather give up her life than fight for it.  What exactly had his aunt done to her?  Just the thought that anything that severe happened sent chills down Ben's spine.

* * *

Tim got off the elevator and stepped into the hospital lobby.  He wandered around for a bit until he found a wall of payphones.  All were in use, so he sat down on a nearby bench to wait.  Wondering if he could spot the fake item easily, he sat back and began reading every bit of the first section.  After every article, which he chose to read thoroughly in case the lie he was looking for was cleverly concealed, he looked up at the payphones, which were never available.  All four were taken by women who could not stop talking.  Tim just rolled his eyes and continued on his hunt.

The investigation did not last long.  On page four - toward the bottom and under an advertisement for washing machines - was his article.  It wasn't cleverly concealed or the least bit subtle.  In bold letters were the words: _OFFICER SLAIN IN LATE NIGHT ROBBERY_.  Under the heading it said: Suspect still at large.

Tim shook his head.  The officer in question was Inspector Steven Keller.  According to the article, Steve had become involved in an overnight robbery at a pharmacy on Market.  The supposed suspect, a tall, thin black man in his early twenties, shot Steve at point blank range, killing him instantly.  The suspect then got away with several bottles of oxycodone and approximately $300 in cash.  Steve's lifeless body was not found until the next morning when the pharmacist came in for work.

Several things in the article bothered Tim, the least of all being the ridiculous grammatical errors no decent journalist would ever make.  The first red flag was that an article about the killing of a police officer was buried on the bottom of the fourth page; that is the kind of event that is considered front page news.  Next, Tim noticed that the article never mentioned Mike or that Steve was with anyone else.  He knew it was possible that Mike and Steve would be on separate jobs, but he felt a late-night trip down Market was not one of those times.  Then there was the whole issue of Steve not being discovered until morning.  He didn't know of any decent pharmacy that did not have an alarm system that would have immediately alerted the police.  

Lastly, the biggest bother was the details of the account.  The article went into far too much detail about the scene, the crime, and the condition of Steve's body.  Tim felt it was written more like a scene out of a murder mystery than a secondhand journalistic account of a crime.  Considering the article was about Steve, and it was probably in Amy's possession, Tim inferred that it was written specifically to not only convince her that a live man was dead but to also make her as miserable as possible.

Tim knew one way to clear up the mess - call Mike.  He would know if his partner was alive.  He would also want to know that Spurious Arne Spurlock was still causing trouble.

Looking up, he noticed that one of the songbirds had flown, so he jumped up and grabbed the phone.  He had the operator connect him to Mike's office in San Francisco.  Instead of being greeted by Mike's friendly voice, he was bombed with an unfamiliar gruff voice who informed him that Mike was out sick.  Tim then tried asking for Steve.  He didn't get him either, but at least he wasn't told the man was dead.  

Tim hung up, picked up the receiver once more, and inserted a few coins before dialing Mike's home number.   _What the hell?_ he muttered after ten long rings.  He hung up and collected his thoughts.  His proof was likely not going to satisfy Karen as it was more hunches and unanswered questions than anything solid.  He needed to go back upstairs with at least one irrefutable piece of evidence that proved that the article was bogus.

He picked up the phone one more time and had the operator connect him with _The San Francisco Chronicle_.  A friendly young woman there informed him that the author of the article, one Jennings Czarnowski, was not an employee of the paper.  She was concerned about Tim's call and that someone might be distributing false articles, but he assured her that the police were aware and investigating.  Upon disconnecting with California, Tim headed for the elevator, confident that he could prove to Karen that the article was a set up.  He just wished he could figure out who was doing the setting.

* * *

After Joy had gotten Amy back to bed and comfortable, she excused herself so that the three could have privacy.  Karen lowered herself onto the bed and took Amy's broken hand into her good one.

"How did you find me?  How did you end up here?  How..."  The two women, eager for answers, talked over each other.

"One at a time, Guys.  Talking's easier that way," Ben told them, finally snapping out of his thoughts and coming back to the present.

Amy turned her head toward him.  "When did you grow up?" she asked, her voice weak and mostly emotionless.  "Last time I saw you...you seemed a lot shorter and looked like a kid.  Now you're a man."  

She turned to Karen.  "Has it really been that long since I was in L.A.?"

Karen nodded.  "Yeah, pretty much."

He walked over to the right side of the bed.  "You know, we wouldn't have told Aunt Margaret you were there.  You never would have had to see her."

Amy put out her right arm and pulled her cousin into a hug.  "You're such a good guy.  I wish there were more of you...although if there were, my mother would have just killed them all."

Karen and Ben looked at each other, puzzled.  With just looks and eye movements, they asked each other if they should elaborate on that or not.  Ben figured that was a bridge that could wait to be crossed.  He ever-so-slightly shook his head and closed his eyes.  Karen gently nodded and turned her attention back to Amy.

"Can I be honest with you for a sec?" Karen asked as Amy let go of Ben.  "You look like shit.  Were you dead at some point?"

Amy smirked.  "Thanks."  She paused before adding, "Though I wished I were."

Before Karen could open her mouth, Amy tried changing the subject.  "How on earth did you find me?"

Karen shook her head.  "Uh uh...you're not changing the subject.  We'll talk about us later.  I want to know what happened to you first."

Amy sighed and looked off at the wall.  

“Keeping it bottled up isn’t gonna help,” Karen reminded her.

“Maybe I just don’t feel like reliving it,” she answered sadly.

Karen squeezed Amy’s hand.  “We’re not gonna judge.  We just spent the last five minutes crying on each other - what are a few more tears?  I just...I want to know what my mother’s sister did to you so that we can finally put that woman back where she belongs!”

Amy turned back to Karen.  “Back?”

“To the funny farm!  Did you know she was in an asylum here in Omaha at one point?”

“Huh?”

“It’s true; Steve told me himself.”

At the mention of Steve’s name, Amy stopped breathing.  She looked down at her lap and held her breath.

“Are you in pain?” Ben asked, looking concerningly at his sister.

Amy said nothing but Karen saw a small stream develop under Amy's left eye.  

"Should I get the nurse?" Karen asked, her heart racing.

Amy furiously shook her head.  "There's no killing this pain...not without literal killing."

The answer only increased Karen's anxieties.  "Amy, that's the third time in a minute that you've mentioned death or dying or killing.  Pardon me for being paranoid, but please stop with the death!  I just spent the last month trying to repress thoughts of you being dead, and now that I finally find you, all you can talk about is wanting to die!  What is going on?"

Amy looked up and angrily spit out, "Steve is dead!"

Karen and Ben froze as Amy began crying.  "He's dead and I don't care if I die too," she muttered under her breath.

"What do you mean he's dead?" Karen asked after the initial shock set in and Amy had calmed down some.  "He's not dead."

"You don't know that!  When was the last time you saw him?" Amy asked.

"Uh...well, it was the day before I went back to L.A., which was the fourth, so May third."

Amy nodded.  "And he was killed on the eighth."  She started looking around her bed.

In the meantime, Ben was putting two and two together.  If Steve was supposedly killed on the eighth, it would be in the next day's paper...the ninth...which was laying on...

"Where's that paper?" Amy anxiously blurted out.

"What paper?" Karen asked.

"That issue of _The Chronicle_ ," Ben answered.  "That was it!  That was the fake part!  He was right!"

Karen groaned.  "Oh, don't tell him that to his face."

"What did you guys do with my paper?"  Amy's voice had a twinge of anger in it.

"Tim has it."  Karen turned to her brother.  "You better go get him."

"Who's Tim?”

“Karen’s boyfriend,” Ben replied in a sing-songy manner before running out of the room.

Amy’s demeanor relaxed.  “Boyfriend?  Have I been gone that long?”

Karen smiled.  “He’s my physical therapist...or was anyway.  He works at the rehab place I was in.”

“You ended up in rehab?”

“Dad moved me back to L.A. and put me in a facility since I can’t really do much with a broken leg and arm.  Tim was assigned to help me.  We got to talking, and…”  She giggled and threw her hands up.  “One day it wasn’t there and the next day it was.  Just like you and Steve.”

“Like me and Steve...so your relationship is doomed, and he’ll die in a robbery.”

“What are you talking about?” Karen whined.

“This,” Karen heard as Tim walked back in the room and showed her page four of the newspaper.

“He already knew,” Ben told the girls as he came in and sat down in a chair.

“I didn’t even have to call - found it myself.”  Tim stood next to Karen.

Karen introduced Tim to Amy before looking at the article.  Her face went from curious to shocked to glowering all in the matter of a minute.  “This is total bullshit!”  She looked up at her boyfriend.  “I apologize for doubting you.”

She then looked at Amy.  “How could you believe this?”

“Because it’s in the newspaper!   _The Chronicle_ isn’t going to print some made up story, especially about...something like that.”

Karen sighed and threw the paper to the side.  “I admit - I thought it was a real paper at first too.  But then Tim here looked at it for five seconds and said it was fake.”  She turned to him.  “You didn’t call the paper?”

“Well, yeah, eventually, but that just sealed the deal in concrete.  What’s supposed to be there is a story about traffic on the Golden Gate, not a phony article about a cop who isn’t dead.”  He leaned over the bed and grabbed the paper.  “Did you see what page this article is on?” he asked both ladies.

Karen took the paper from him again and looked at the top of the page.  “Four,” she announced.

Tim nodded.  “Now tell me, have you ever seen a story this important buried on page four under an ad for washing machines?”

Karen looked at Amy.  “This is front page stuff.”

“Exactly.  And no journalist who wants to keep their job is going to print that much detail about an investigation.  It would blow the inspectors’ whole case if the public knew that much!  That said to me that whoever wrote this created the whole thing out of thin air and threw in every detail they came up with, probably to make you as miserable as possible," he said, looking at Amy.  "With their fiction prowess, they should write murder mysteries instead.”

Amy looked at him skeptically.  “How would you know?  You’re not a cop or a lawyer.”

“Oh!” Karen blurted out loud enough to startle her cousin.  “I totally forgot the best part!  He is a cop!”

“Karen,” Tim growled under his breath.

“Okay, okay, went to cop school and almost became a cop.”  Karen turned to him.  “Speaking of cops, did you call Mike and tell him about this?  I mean, he would know the truth.”

Tim let out a frustrated breath.  “Get this - he’s supposedly out sick, which is pretty suspect for one because the man only takes a sick day when he’s forced to.  For two, I call his house and no one answers.  Unless he was dying, he’d answer the phone.”

“Who’s Mike?” Amy asked quietly.

“You called the station?” Karen inquired.

Tim nodded.

“Did you ask if Steve was there?”

Tim nodded again.  “No luck, but the guy didn’t say anything about his whereabouts.”

“Who are you guys talking about?” Amy interjected.

Karen snickered and turned her way.  “You know how small this world is?  He knows Lieutenant Stone!  Like, Steve’s partner!  Here we meet in L.A., but it turns out he’s really from San Francisco and he knows the same two cops I do!”

Amy glanced Tim’s way.  “You know Mike?”

“Have for years.  He was, uh...pretty much the reason I wanted to become an officer.”

"Oh," Amy answered quietly.  "Did you ever meet Steve?"

Tim shook his head.  "But I heard about him.  Mike was always impressed with his work.  Couldn't brag about him enough."

Amy half smiled.  "He was a great guy.  A rare jewel."  More tears came as she closed her eyes tightly.

"Is, Amy, is.  He's not dead!  Where'd you get this paper anyway?" Karen asked.

"Mom."

Karen shook her head.  "And you still believed it was true?!  After everything that woman has said and done to keep you and Steve apart?!  If she's got the guts to kidnap you from a hospital, she'd create a fake death."

"Where would my mother get the resources to create a fake newspaper!?  Hell, I'm still trying to figure out how she became crafty enough to kidnap me."

"Because she's insane!" Karen nearly screamed.

Tim gently placed a hand on his girlfriend's shoulder.  "How much money does your mom have access to?" he asked Amy.

She paused for a bit.  "Should be very little, but she's got all my money."

Karen gave her a questioning look, so she elaborated.

"The power of attorney that she used to get me out of the hospital - it also gave her access to all the money Dad left me.  I hadn't touched that money...and now it's all hers."

"Exactly how much are we talking?" Karen inquired.

Amy shrugged.  "Upwards of a million," she said as if she were ashamed.

"Uncle Glen had that much money?"  Karen's mouth was hanging wide open.

"The guy...the lawyer who helped her...he, uh, admitted everything to me in the ambulance while Mom was getting food or something.  Told me that Dad had left me everything and left Mom nothing.  I never even knew."

"I thought you went to his will reading?"

"I thought I did too."  Tears kept coming, and her pale-complected face turned a light shade of rose.

"And you don't think she could have faked a newspaper?"

Amy took a deep breath which made her wince in pain.  "How could I have been so stupid?"

In an attempt to get the conversation back to the case at hand, Tim said, "Well, as far as the money goes, I'm sure Mike or the D.A. or someone could get that power of attorney overturned, though you may not get all the money back."

He took the paper from Karen.  "As far as the resources...you wave enough cash around, one of Arne's men comes running.  It really doesn't take much to hear where you can get his services.  Ask the right person in Chinatown, you get your information."

"Arne...is that the man you mentioned earlier?" Ben asked.

Tim nodded.  "And if he knew Margaret had access to that much dough, he'd come out of hiding himself.  This is definitely his work."

Karen looked at Amy, who had her head back and her eyes closed.  "Do you believe us?"

Amy said nothing for what seemed like an eternity.  Karen wondered if she had fallen asleep until she finally muttered, "I don't know what to believe anymore.  She hates him like Hitler hated Jewish people.  Maybe even worse."

Karen sighed.  "Guess we'll have to find Steve and put him here in front of you then.  There's no way Margaret got to him.  Where is she anyway?"

Amy yawned.  "I dunno.  I haven't seen her since I got here," she said sleepily.  "I think they worked...out some deal to keep...her away."

"They?" Ben asked.

"Jack...and Lilly."  Amy's head started falling off to the side.  

"Oh yeah...are they here?" Karen asked.

"They went...home."

Tim set the paper on the table next to the bed on top of the others.  "Guys, I think we should let Amy get some sleep.  We need to find a hotel anyway.  We can work on the project after dinner."

Ben stood up.  "Good idea.  I think I saw a place close by."  He grabbed Karen's wheelchair and wheeled it over to her.

Karen looked at the boys.  “Why don’t you guys go find something and then come back and get me.  I’d kinda like to stay here, even if she is asleep.”

Tim agreed, and he and Ben left her there holding Amy’s hand.  After they were gone, Karen simply let out a sigh and wondered aloud, “How did this family end up so messed up?”

 

 


	27. Chapter 27

**_Friday, May 24, 1974_ **

Jeannie, designating herself the group's entertainment director, gave Jasmine several options of things to do.  She chose to go miniature golfing first, but only after Mike and Steve explained what it was.  Realizing that she had done it once at a birthday party, she chose that, but Steve wondered why she initially hesitated.  He asked her if she was positive of her choice, and she insisted she was.  He asked a couple more times, including right before they entered the miniature golf facility.  Jeannie pulled him off to the side and inquired about the persistent line of questioning.

"She hesitated like she wasn't sure she should or not.  You saw it, didn't you?" he replied.

Jeannie shook her head.  "She only hesitated because she wasn't sure what mini golf was.  After you guys explained it, she was fine."

"You didn't see the look on her face even after that?  She looked like something was bothering her."

Jeannie patted Steve on the back.  "What could possibly be bothering her?  She has her dad for a whole weekend.  Look at her."  She pointed over to Mike and Jasmine, who were picking out putters.  Whatever Mike was saying was making Jasmine giggle.

"Now are those the mannerisms of a child who's got the weight of the world on her shoulders?"

"Well...no, probably not," was all Steve said.

"Don't worry so much, Steve!  It'll just give you gray hair before you're thirty."  Jeannie chuckled, playfully tousled his hair, and wandered off to join her father.

Steve just sighed.  Jeannie might not have seen it, but there was some fear in Jasmine's eyes.  It was a look he had seen before.  He may not have known all her looks just yet, but he knew apprehension.  What could possibly be scary about miniature golf though?  After a bit of pondering, he figured it must have something to do with the fact that Amy was absent.  They had probably done this together before.

Steve's pocketbook took a hit as they played four eighteen-hole rounds - mostly because Steve couldn't bring himself to say no and neither could anyone else.  Jasmine seemed happy, and none of the adults wanted that happiness to fade.

Round one was everyone playing for themselves.  Steve was the big winner with Jasmine coming in second.  It helped that Steve was in charge of keeping score and kept knocking strokes off her number.  Mike ribbed him about it and even double checked the score Steve gave himself.  Mike wanted a rematch; he couldn't let Steve get the best of him in front of his daughter after all.  Round two was ladies versus gentlemen, the latter being the victor.  Round three was ladies' choice, so Jasmine picked her grandfather and Jeannie got Steve.  Again, Steve was on the winning team.  Mike and Jeannie jokingly accused Steve of fixing the scorecard again.  He denied it with his best "handsome scoundrels are always innocent" routine.  Jeannie didn't buy it, so she took the scorecard and declared the last round dads and daughters. 

As the final game dwindled down, Jasmine's mood got progressively more sour.  She had gotten mad at herself and discouraged all afternoon when a putt did not go her way, but Steve would gently remind her that all three of them had missed putts, and then she was fine.  Now though, nothing made her happy.  After every hole, she asked Jeannie what the score was, and every time it was higher than Mike and Jeannie's.  This made her obsessively fret over every putt.  When the ball ended up nowhere near the hole, she would stomp her feet, mutter, or throw the putter down in anger.

Steve was getting irritated with her behavior.  He warned her that if she kept it up, they would leave without finishing the game.  That kept her quiet for a couple holes, but it wasn't long before she completely lost her composure.

On the eighteenth hole, one that involved the dreaded windmill, Jasmine took her first shot which promptly hit a blade and came rolling back.  She huffed and tried again.  The ball did the same thing.

“Stupid ball!”

“Jasmine…” Steve warned.  

She grabbed the ball and dropped it on the tee.  She then stood for an exceedingly long amount of time just almost hitting the ball.

“Honey, just hit it,” Steve told her

“I can’t.  It has to go through!” she whined.

“It will eventually,” Mike encouraged.  “Just give it your best try.”

She stared at the ball.  She stared at the windmill.  She heard Janice’s voice in the back of her head say,  _ You better make this putt, or you’ll embarrass me and your father.  It took a lot to get us invited to this party, and you are not going to ruin it for me by screwing this up, you hear me?  If you do, I’m leaving you here.  Maybe the gypsies will want you! _

_ I have to make this putt...I have to make this putt,  _ she told herself as she slowly swung the putter back and carefully hit the ball.  It rolled leisurely toward the small mousehole-shaped opening at the base of the windmill.  It stayed right in line with the entry, losing speed as it got closer.  Jasmine stared at the ball as it got closer...closer...closer to the hole...and stopped right at the entrance.

Jeannie, who was standing closest to the windmill, tried to get there and give the ball a gentle nudge through the hole, but a blade knocked it to the side before she could.

Jasmine lost it.  She threw the putter down, ran up to the ball, picked it up, and threw it at the windmill.  Fortunately, it bounced off and toward a grassy area instead of toward people or glass.  “You stupid ball!” she screamed and then began crying.

Steve had had enough.  He quickly grabbed Jasmine by the waist, lifted her up, and carried her out of the facility.  Jeannie noticed that several people stopped and stared, but they mostly looked empathetic toward Steve; they were parents - they’d been in his shoes.

Moments later, the two were at Steve’s rental - a 1974 avocado green Mercury Cougar with a white Landau vinyl roof.  He opened the driver’s side door, pushed the seat forward, and told Jasmine to climb in.  Before he got in, he shook his head at the car.  The white, one-quarter of a faux convertible top was tacky and pretentious, and the fact that the seats matched it turned his stomach.  It reminded him of an old man whose belt matched his shoes.  Unfortunately for him, it was all the airport had available.  The car made him feel more like a middle-aged father of three who grabbed groceries for his nagging wife on his way home from the office and took the car on weekend trips to the museum, not a 29 year old who would prefer to take his non-nagging girlfriend on romantic trips to the beach and make out in the backseat of German sports car.  That thought made him grin impishly until he looked down at the backseat and the reason he was standing by the ugly car in the first place.  It wasn't necking in the back seat, or running off to Tahoe on a spontaneous ski weekend, but it was his new reality - and as pragmatic as it was, Steve realized he was at peace.  He loved this miserable little girl and her equally miserable mother, and if giving up his wild bachelor ways and embracing the life the Cougar symbolized meant the two would forever be in his life, he would gladly drive the sturdy coupe to happiness.  Besides, he didn't see Amy as the frumpy, nagging housewife type anyway.  He just hoped she also wasn't the station wagon type.

Bringing himself back to reality, he followed Jasmine into the car and left the door open for air.  He turned to find her slid over to the far passenger’s side and curled up in a ball, sobbing into the vinyl seat.

He decided to let her cry herself out before attempting to get her to talk, but during his wait, she started pleading with him.  "Please don't leave me here with the gypsies," she cried into her lap.

"The gypsies?" Steve inquired out loud.  "Sweetheart, please look at me."

Jasmine didn't move.

"Princess, will you please look at me and tell me what's wrong?"

"I don't want you to leave me here!  I'll do better next time, I promise!"

All Steve could think was,  _ What the hell did those people do to this poor child? _

"Why would I leave you here?  Because you threw a fit?  That didn't make me happy, but I'm not gonna leave you somewhere because of it.  If parents did that every time their kids threw fits, no kids would ever go home."

She finally looked up at him, but all she did was nod.

Steve took a deep breath and decided to take a different approach instead of trying to assure her that her fears were unfounded.

"Is this about your mom?"

Jasmine very quietly said yes.

"What did she do?"

She looked down at her lap.  Her face was covered in tears and mucus, and Steve didn't have any tissues or a handkerchief on him, so he got out of the car, got into the trunk and his luggage, and grabbed a pair of socks.  It made him flashback to his own childhood and the desperate things his parents would have to do in similar situations.  His mother was the original brains behind the sock trick.  Young Steven had an unexpected sneezing fit while camping in Mt. Diablo State Park.  Since they were on an impromptu hike, his mother hadn't brought anything with her.  Not wanting her son to suffer through having snot running down his face, she took off his socks and made him use them as tissues.  It wasn't the most practical thing, but it served its purpose.

He smiled as he got back into the car and handed Jasmine a sock, telling her what to do with it.  She gave him a questioning look but blew her nose anyway.

"My mom taught me how sometimes, you have to use what you have, even if it seems weird...like blowing your nose into a dress sock."  He used the other sock to wipe the waterworks off her cheeks.

She sniffled before asking, "Did she ever tell you she was gonna leave you somewhere and not come back and get you?"

Steve reached over and pushed some wispy blonde hair away from her face so he could see her better.  "No, she didn't."

"Even when you were being a brat?"

"Even when I was being a brat.  Parents don't say things like that to their kids."

"My mom did.  She even did it once."  Jasmine turned her back to Steve and leaned her head against the seat.

"She left you somewhere?" Steve asked, disgust more evident in his voice than he wanted.  

"At a place like this.”

“Ah,” Steve said in an understanding manner.  “So that’s why you weren’t sure about coming here at first.”

He paused, and she said nothing.

“You wanna tell me about it?”

Jasmine looked back at him and saw not a shred of anger on his face, so she turned around, leaned over, and laid her head in his lap.  He draped his right arm over her and took her right hand in his as she slowly recalled the day she and Janice went miniature golfing.   

It was for a birthday party.  Jasmine didn't even like the girl and didn't want to go to the party, but Janice insisted they get invited and make a fashionable appearance.  While there, the woman repeatedly told Jasmine to be as good as possible and to make a good impression.  She also insisted that Jasmine be as good at the game as some of the other party attendees.  

Given that her mother never took her anywhere, Jasmine had never played miniature golf and had no idea what she was doing.  Janice kept threatening her to get her to play better.  By sheer willpower - and plenty of fear - Jasmine got better as the game progressed, but it still wasn't enough for Janice.  On the eighteen, Janice's embarrassment threshold peaked.  She told her daughter that if she didn't at least make par, she was leaving her there for the gypsies.  She had no place in her home for a child who did everything so badly and felt no remorse for embarrassing her parents in public.

Steve let his head fall back on the seat.  He rubbed his left hand over his face in frustration.  "And you didn't make the putt, so she left you there."

He felt the leg of his pants getting moist.  "I went to the bathroom, and when I came out, everyone was gone.  A nice policeman took me home."

"And then you thought you'd have to do that this time too or the same thing would happen?"  He saw the obvious similarities between the two, but he hadn't been pressuring her to make any putts.  "Why?"

"Because you'd won every game except the one you played with me, and it was my fault and..."

He quickly cut her off.  "Hold it right there," he told her as he squeezed her hand.  "Sit up."

She sat up and turned his way but looked at his shoulder instead of his face.  

"Look at me."

It took her awhile, but she eventually looked up at him.

"Did I say anything about having to win every game?"

She shook her head.

"You know why I didn't?"

She nonchalantly shrugged.

"It's because I don't care!  We came here to have fun - that's it.  And we were having fun, weren't we?"

She slowly nodded.

"Were any of us perfect?  Or did we miss a lot of shots?"

"I guess," she agreed noncommittally.

"Like when Grandpa hit his ball too hard, and it flew over the green and into that bush?  That was pretty funny.  You laughed."

She smiled and let out a quiet giggle.

"Or when it took Jeannie fourteen tries to get her ball over that little hill?"

"She kept laughing."

Steve nodded.  "And what about the alligator?"

Jasmine let out a louder chuckle.  "He didn't wanna eat your ball."

Steve let out a chuckle of his own.  "Guess he didn't like the red ones.  Maybe they're too spicy.  He ate your pink one though, didn't he?"

"That's cuz it tastes like bubble gum."  She smiled at the thought.  

"You see how none of us are perfect?  We all made mistakes, but instead of getting mad, we laughed."

He picked her up and sat her on his lap so that she was facing him.

"Your mom...she was very wrong to make you try to be perfect.  Nobody's perfect.  Not me, not Mommy, not Grandpa or Jeannie...no one."

Jasmine suddenly looked down.  "When I did things right, she was nice to me.  She maybe even loved me."

Steve put both his hands on the side of her face and moved her head up..  "And Mommy and I will love you even if you do things wrong."

The two sat and looked at each other in silence as they absorbed the conversation.

"You're so much like Amy, you know that?"

Jasmine looked at him peculiarly.  “I am?  But I have blonde hair…”

Steve chuckled.  “I don’t mean you look like her, I mean you two act the same.  She thinks she has to be perfect too, or..."  He wasn't sure he wanted to finish the thought.  Just thinking about Amy was painful enough, but thinking about her vast array of insecurities that liked to try and drive a wedge between them just made him miss her more.

"Or what?" Jasmine asked, her natural child curiosities taking over.

Steve pursed his lips together before choking on an answer.  "Or I won't love her."

Jasmine felt the sudden urge to give him a hug.  "Will you love us both even if we make big mistakes?"

He rubbed her back and fought off tears.  "I will always love you two no matter what."

Through eyes blurred by salty saline, Steve saw Mike and Jeannie slowly approach the car.  He quickly tried to rub the tears out of his eyes with his thumb and index finger.  Mike leaned over the open driver's door, and Jeannie crossed to the other side of the car.

"How're you guys doing?" Mike asked.  

Steve nodded and said, "Fine, fine.  Just tired and hungry."  He looked down at Jasmine, who still had her face buried in Steve's chest.  "Are you hungry?"

She nodded and mumbled the word pizza.

"Oh...making a request, huh?" Mike said.

Jeannie sat down in the passenger's seat and looked back at Steve and Jasmine.  "I read about some pizza place down here that also has arcade games, and they show cartoons on a big TV, aaaand...they have a huge ice cream counter with more flavors than Baskin-Robbins!"

Jasmine lifted her head off Steve's chest and turned toward Jeannie.  "And they have thirty-one!"

"I think you sold her!"  Mike got into the car himself, closing the door after him.  He then glanced in the rear view mirror.

"You're sure everything's okay, Buddy Boy?"  Mike knew Steve’s previous answer was a lie and wanted to give him one more chance to tell the story.

"Just fine.  Jeannie, where is this place?"


	28. Chapter 28

**_Friday, May 24, 1974_ **

Mike pulled the car into the restaurant parking lot.  The four piled out into the late-day sunshine and headed toward the front door.

"Sweetheart, why don't you and Jasmine go on in and get us a table?  We'll be right in."

Steve stopped in his tracks and rolled his eyes.  He knew what was coming.  "C'mon, Mike!  This isn't necessary."

Jeannie nodded and put her left hand out for Jasmine to take.  "Sure, Mike."  She looked at Steve sympathetically; she knew what was coming also.

Jasmine took Jeannie's hand.  "Can we order breadsticks?  Amy always gets them."

"Of course we can!"  Jeannie looked at her father.  "Should we go ahead and order?"

Mike nodded.  "Sure; you know what we like."

"But don't you dare order anchovies!" Steve quickly added.

Jeannie laughed and led Jasmine toward the restaurant.  As the guys waited for them to disappear, they heard Jasmine ask Jeannie, "What are anchovies?"

Jeannie paused before telling her, "Little salty fish."

"On pizza?!  Ewww!" Jasmine exclaimed before she and Jeannie disappeared into the restaurant.

Steve chuckled.  "Smart kid."  He then looked at Mike, who was grinning at the girls' discussion.

"I am fine," Steve reassured Mike.

"Oh, sure.  I can tell," Mike answered sarcastically.  He crossed his arms over his chest.  "Your eyes are always full of tears."

He paused and watched Steve look everywhere but at him.  It was typical behavior for someone trying not to admit the other person had them pegged - and of someone trying not to start crying again.

"What did she say to you?" Mike prompted.

Steve sighed and ran his hands through his hair before pacing in a circle.  

"That bitch left her at a miniature golf course once.  By herself!  All because Jasmine didn't play as well as the other kids at the party - probably because that sorry excuse of a mother never took her anywhere!  She didn't perform perfectly like a trained seal because, you know, she's just a kid, so her so-called mother yells at her, tells her she's sick of her being an embarrassment, and leaves her there hoping that someone else would kidnap her."

Mike watched in silence as Steve took his anger out on rocks that were aimlessly scattered around the middle of the parking lot.

After a small tantrum, Steve looked back up at Mike.  "So now she thinks the only way to get me to love her is to be perfect at everything she does - just like Amy.  She wasn't today, so..."  He trailed off, figuring he didn't need to say anything else.

The two men let a moment of silence come between them.  

"How'd she get home?" Mike inquired.

"Said a policeman took her home.  Don't know how long she was there...alone..."  He took a deep breath.

"So there should be a report."

Steve shrugged as if to say,  _ What does it matter now? _

"Just curious as to why she wasn't taken out of that house then.  Side effect of the profession.”  He paused momentarily, watching his protégé try to work through his glut of emotions, before saying, “There’s something else, isn’t there?”

Steve looked at him skeptically.  

“You’re not just upset over what happened today, or why it happened...there’s something else festering under there. You might as well get it out now while the girls aren’t here.”

Mike saw hesitation written all over Steve’s face.  It wasn’t like him to readily reveal his feelings to the world, but the older man hoped that Steve trusted him enough to let him in this time.  Mike had a good feeling that he was going to need all the emotional support he could stand for a while.

Steve exhaled and wandered over to the Cougar.  He sat down on the back bumper - his hands bracing himself on both sides of his body - and looked down at the ground.  “It should have been easy.”

“What should have?” Mike asked, slowly approaching the car.

Steve looked up at him and shrugged.

Mike leaned against the Cougar’s trunk.  “Believe it or not, I’ve been around.  I’ve lived through a lot of things - some of the same things you’re living through right now as a matter of fact.  I just might be able to offer some sage advice.”

“You have  _ not _ lived through this, Michael.”

“Really?”  Mike scrunched up his face as he found the boy’s doubts interesting and a challenge.  “Try me.  Tell me what’s on your mind, and we’ll see if I can’t relate.”

Steve looked back down at the ground, uncomfortable with seeing Mike’s reactions to what he was about to say.  “It just seemed so perfect at the time, you know?  More perfect than with any other woman I’d ever met.”

“It  _ always _ seems that way at first, Buddy Boy.”

Steve snickered.  “True.  But this was different.  A lot different.”  He looked from the ground to the sky.  “When I was younger, I used to wonder if, when I met the one, would I know right away?  How would I know?  Would I think I knew and then later find out it was a false sign?”

Mike smiled.  “You never figured it out, did you?”

“Hell no.  All I knew was that the world was definitely full of false signs.”  He paused and stared straight ahead, a grin developing on his face.  “But then I looked in her eyes.  I don’t know what I was seeing, but her eyes spoke to me.”

“What did they say?”

“Don’t you dare let me get away.  Your life will never be the same if you do.”  Steve focused on the building straight ahead as he flashed back to that day in the cemetery.  

“She was lying there on the ground, unconscious, blood oozing out of her side, and all I could think was how I couldn’t lose this woman.”

“I think we’ve all been there with a victim.”

“Yeah, but I don’t just mean I couldn’t let her die; I couldn’t let her get out of my life!  I suddenly felt like, if this girl died before I ever got a chance to know her…”  He took a deep breath.  “I’ve seen women I thought were beautiful or I felt some sort of instant attraction to, but I realize now that all it was was a few too many beers and lustful thoughts.”

Mike chuckled and sat down on the bumper next to his young friend.

“When she finally opened her eyes and looked up at me...I just wanted to see that every morning for the rest of my life - even if she  _ was _ crying at the time.  Little did I know then that it was something I’d have to get used to.”  He smiled thinking about Amy’s ability to cry at just about everything. 

“It was the worst day of her life, and yet in the midst of it all, she smiled at me.  Not much of a smile, but for a girl who appeared to have the most miserable life imaginable... _ I _ got her to smile.  Even through all that excruciating pain, she smiled at me.  She even joked that she was lucky to be alive since Milani had already killed someone.

"She didn’t know me from any other cop there - or any other person for that matter - but when the ambulance came, she wouldn’t let go of my hand.  I’d been holding my coat against her side to help stop the bleeding, and as she was coming to, she put her hand on top of mine...and never let go until the ambulance guys made her.  Then she kept watching me, like she had put all her trust in me in that split second.  I’ve never wanted to let any victims or their families down, but this…”

“Became an obsession?” Mike added.

Steve nodded slightly.  “I had to be her hero.  I had to be _ the one _ .  All I could think about for the rest of the day was her.  She was so scared and alone in the hospital, and I just wanted to stay with her...but I knew that was stepping over some sort of bounds, so I went home...and imagined the two of us together - what our lives would look like in five years.  Nice house overlooking the Bay, a couple kids, and the two of us, lying on a hammock wrapped in each other's arms - those stunning blue eyes boring into my soul and forcing me to be a better man.”

Mike grinned.  “Their eyes get you every time, don’t they?”

Steve chuckled in agreement.

“Helen never even had to say anything to me; her eyes could have done all the talking.  I knew her every emotion just by looking into her eyes.  And you’re right, Buddy Boy - it does make you want to be a better man, because there is nothing more beautiful in the world than when she looks at you with all the love in the world behind her gaze.”  He looked off longingly as he remembered.

“Too bad all I’ve gotten so far is misery when I look in Amy’s eyes.”  There was an unmistakable hint of sorrow behind his words.

“All you’ve gotten?” Mike asked suspiciously.

Steve shrugged.  “Okay, not all.  There have been times…”

“Yeah, _ times _ ,” Mike grunted playfully.

“But...they’ve been few and far between.”

Mike took a moment to let the puckish mood die down.  “It’ll get better, I promise.  And very soon.”

The two men sat in silence, both lost in thought about the love of their life and the current lack of contentment on Steve’s part.  It hurt Mike to see his friend in such turmoil, and he wished that he was more of a magician and could make everyone’s pain permanently disappear.

He decided that if he couldn’t make everything just vanish, he could at least ease his partner’s anxieties over his relationship as a whole.  “If you would have asked me what kind of woman I would have wanted you to be attached to for all eternity - she would have been it.”

Steve finally looked at his partner.  “Really?” he said, his voice perking up.

Mike put his right arm around Steve’s shoulders and gripped his right shoulder.  “Absolutely.  She’s a wonderful woman!  You can see that just from how she’s raised Jasmine.  You know that Amy is the only reason that poor girl is as together as she is.  Plus, I know she’ll take very good care of you, and some days I think you need that more than you realize!”  Mike laughed.

Steve laughed with him.  “You’re right.”  Steve stared off into space again.  “But what if…”

“What if what?  You don’t still think Amy’s dead, do you?” Mike asked, exasperated at the possibility that they’d come all this way and Steve was still pessimistic about the whole ordeal.

He turned and looked Mike squarely in his blue eyes.  “None of this should have happened.  I should have figured out what was going on before Margaret ever got near Amy!  I should have protected her.  What if she realizes that?  What if she realizes what a failure I am?  Huh?”

He stood up and started pacing around the back of the car.  “Maybe this car is just mocking me!  ‘Hey Steve, I’m gonna get you all prepared to put your bachelor days behind you...then WHAM!  Take it all away!' She’ll thank me for ruining her life and giving her a lifetime of bad memories, and then she’ll take Jasmine away from me too.  And as much as I may have wanted to fight it - I’ve grown very attached to that little girl.  To both of them.  And now it’s all gone…”

"Orrrr...she will be overjoyed to see you - the word failure never crossing her mind."

Mike, always the voice of reason, continued on with a tale of his own.  "Do you have any idea how many times I disappointed Helen?  Hmm?  At least weekly."

Steve looked at him skeptically.  "You?"

"Yeah, me.  And yet she still kept me.  Go figure.  Sit down," he told Steve, pointing at the bumper beside him.

"You're doing the same thing Amy and Jasmine are, you know that?"

"What?  What am I doing?" Steve asked in complete disbelief.

"You're thinking you have to be perfect or they won't love you."

Purely reflexive, Steve started to argue, but he stopped before he even uttered a single word.  "I am, aren't I?"

Mike nodded.  "But you know what?  We all do it, especially when we really want to impress our lady.  Did your father ever give you the speech on how to treat a woman?"

Steve nodded.  "Sure.  Treat her like a queen.  Not that he knew how to put that into practice...but it sounded good anyway, I guess."

"Either way...you basically become her knight in shining armor, right?"

"Yeah, guess so...which is what I was trying to be."

"And little girls - they grow up on those fairy tales where the handsome man saves the princess and they live happily ever after.  That guy is always perfect!  So when those little girls grow up, part of them expects the man they love to be Prince Charming.   And we fools try to be him!  We try so hard!  And inevitably we fail.  Then we have to see that slight bit of disappointment in their eyes when they realize we’re not Prince Charming, and it kills us.  We obsess over what we should have done different and what we can do to not screw up so bad next time.  But...”

“There’s a but?”

Mike nodded.  “They too realize that they’re not Cinderella - we just treat them that way.  When that time comes, all is forgiven, they’re no longer disappointed...and you go back to being the human version of Prince Charming.”

“Until the next time you screw something up.”

“It’s a cycle, but it’s a cycle for them too.  They’re not perfect either, you know.  Amy’s not perfect, is she?”

Steve snickered.  “Far from it.”

“And Jasmine’s not perfect.”

“She’s too much like Amy to be.”

“But you love them anyway.  So why do you think they won’t love you?”

Steve said nothing at first, but soon quietly added.  “But there’s a lot of extra baggage you never had.”

Mike looked at him quizzically.  “What extra baggage?”

Steve let out a breath.  “This whole thing started because of me - because Margaret Johnson hates me so much.  All the hell Amy’s living through - hopefully,” he added, choking on the words, “was because that woman is so desperate to keep us apart.  If I hadn’t been in the picture…”

“...it probably would have still happened eventually.  Just with someone else.  Amy wouldn’t have been content to resign herself to being Paul Carpenter’s slave, now would she have?”

Steve vehemently shook his head.

“So, somewhere down the road she would have met someone else and things very well could have turned out the same, except that she wouldn’t have had a man with police instincts to protect her.  Or, perhaps she would have figured all this out on her own and been in a bigger pickle, again because she had no one like you to turn to.”

Steve considered Mike’s words for a moment.  “So what you’re saying is, that all of this would have probably happened anyway...but worse?”

“Exactly.  Look what happened before you even came in the picture?  How many died?”

“Okay, I’ll give you that, but Margaret didn’t factor into any of that.  All that’s going on now is solely because of her.”

Mike looked at the young man sideways.  “She didn’t?”

“No, she…”  Steve stood up and looked down at man sitting on the bumper.  “What are you getting at?”

“I’ve had a lot of time to think, to reflect, to worry...to talk to Lenny.  Granted, a lot of times it was about you, but the subject of Paul and Margaret did come up.  I never could shake their connection.  It was very weird.  I asked Lenny once about the kind of person he thought Paul Carpenter was.  A little tough after the fact perhaps, but we agreed on one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“That Paul was not the type to come up with all this hatred, all this revenge...all these seemingly ‘perfect’ murders on his own - but Margaret is.”

Steve looked at Mike like he had suddenly grown another head.

“She’s a master manipulator, Steve.  Lenny says she’s likely the type who will stop at nothing to get what they want.  If that was Amy, she could have easily exploited Paul into doing what she wanted.  She probably convinced him that killing all those people would get Amy to love him.”

Steve stared at Mike for what seemed like an eternity.  “You think she was behind everything?”

“Uh huh.”

“You have proof?”

“Just years on the job.”

“And a psychiatrist who agrees with you.”

“Do you agree?”

Steve crossed his arms over his chest.  Part of him wasn’t sure about this new theory of Mike’s, but he also knew to never discount Mike’s intuition.  “I can see it.  But if that’s the case…”  He took a deep breath and exhaled loudly but slowly.  “We are in for some kind of fight.”

Mike stood up and sighed as well.  “Yes we are, Buddy Boy, yes we are.”  He put both his hands on Steve’s shoulders.  “But don’t let that get you discouraged!  We will come out victorious!  And all of us will be in one piece!”

At that moment, a little girl in a pink and white romper came out from between two cars, looked both ways, and then skipped over to Steve and Mike.  She came up behind Steve and shouted “boo!” before throwing her arms around Steve’s leg.

He looked down at their guest.  “What are you doing out here?”  He turned back and looked at the restaurant, thinking he might see Jeannie coming after her.

“Aunt Jeannie said I could.  I watched for cars.  Daddy, are you guys coming in?  We ordered and everything.”

“Come on, Buddy Boy, we can’t keep our dates waiting!”

Steve picked up Jasmine and followed Mike across the parking lot.  After the intense conversation the two just had, he relished in seeing the beaming smile on the little blonde’s face.

“You know what they’re showing on the TV in there?!” she blurted out excitedly.

“No idea.  What?” Steve replied with equal enthusiasm.

“Spider-Man cartoons!”

Both Mike and Steve glanced at her, confused.  “Spider-Man?” Steve finally asked.

“He’s great!  He’s a superhero!  He busts bad guys, just like you and Grampa!”

“Really...so are we superheroes too?”

“Of course, Silly!  You saved me...and you saved Betty.  Or maybe Gwen.  Mary Jane?”  She looked at her adopted father very seriously.  “I’m not sure which one Mommy would be.”

“Were those all Spider-Man’s girlfriends?” Mike asked as they got to the door of the restaurant.

“Yeah.”

“I get three girlfriends?” Steve asked, grinning.  “I think I like this new gig.”

Mike swatted him on the arm playfully.  “Hey, you have to share.”

“What?  Alright…”  He looked at the little girl in his arms.  “Which girl do you like best?”

“Gwen was nicer than Mary Jane, but she’s dead now.”

“Dead?”

“The Green Goblin throwed her off a bridge.”

Steve laughed as he told Mike, “You can have her then.  I’ll take the other two.”

Mike opened the door to the restaurant and stepped aside, allowing the other two to enter.  “You’re a real pal, you are,” Mike cracked, just happy to see his friend finally smiling.


	29. Chapter 29

**_Friday, May 24, 1974_ **

All throughout dinner, Jasmine was quiet.  She kept thinking about what she had done and just how upset Steve was with her.  Part of her believed what he said to her, but part of her trusted no one but Amy.  All her life she had been lied to and tricked by every adult in her family but Amy, and even though Steve had also done nothing to her, she still didn’t know him that well.  Without Amy around to assuage her illogical fears, Jasmine felt alone and confused.  Could she really trust this man or not?  

Despite the conflicting inner dialogue going on in her mind, she kept eyeing the massive ice cream counter as she ate her pizza and tuned out what the adults were discussing.  After the pizza pans and plates had been cleared away and the check fought over, she casually hinted to her father that she wanted to get some - she had been good all through dinner.  The rookie dad looked at his watch.  It was only a little past seven, so dessert would not be a big deal, but he decided to be funny and tease her a little.  He pretended that he wouldn't get her any because it was too much sugar so close to bedtime, but that he, Jeannie, and Mike could have as much as they wanted.  Sugar doesn’t affect adults after all.

This hit her like a ton of bricks.  She couldn’t understand why Steve, whom she thought was an ally, was denying her ice cream - and smiling about it.  She asked again, but Steve stood his ground.  He was curious how long he could go on with the ruse before he caved and became one of those parents who couldn't say no to his children.  

Instead, Jasmine sat in the corner and pouted.  All she could think about were all the times in her past where her parents denied her things but then promptly partook in those same activities right in front of her.  There was very little Janice loved more than torturing her daughter with untouchable desserts.

“You don’t love me anymore,” she muttered, pulling her knees to her chest and crying into them.

“What?  What do you mean I don’t love you anymore?  I just want you to sleep well, that’s all.”  Steve wasn’t taking her very seriously, figuring she was trying to use guilt against him; he had done it to his parents when he was a kid too.  

He soon realized that this was not some guilt trip or temper tantrum; Jasmine was crying real tears.  “I don’t deserve anything,” she cried into her knees.  “I never did.”

“Good job, Dad,” Mike teased.  He had been on the receiving end of similar statements in his life.

Steve tried to save face.  He asked her what was wrong, but she just kept telling him that he was just like her mean mom and no one loved her.

Jeannie thought maybe the situation called for a woman’s touch, so she took Jasmine away from the table and outside, where she leaned down to Jasmine's eye level and asked the girl to confide in her.  Jasmine did, telling her all about the Duncan’s negligence, and that they would often feed her little to nothing while they gorged in front of her.  She was always told it was punishment for something, but as Jasmine got older, she realized that sometimes she had not even done what she had been accused of doing.  

“So you thought Steve was doing the same thing here?” Jeannie asked.  “Was it because of what happened at the golf course?”

Jasmine nodded and wiped some tears from her eyes.

Jeannie gave her a comforting smile, though she personally felt anything but comfort.  She had heard about the Duncans - as much as Steve and Mike knew anyway - and between that and this, knew that Jasmine was in for many years of anxiety and therapy.

“Sweetheart, he was just teasing.  Honestly, he’s not mad about what happened.  I’ve seen Steve get mad, and trust me, he is _not_ mad at you.  There is just a lot about your life that he doesn’t know about or understand.  Have you ever told him about what they did?”

She shook her head.

“When you feel comfortable, I want you to tell him, okay?  You can trust him.  He wants you to be happy, and knowing about things that bother you will help him know how to make you happy.  But I promise you, he _was_ just teasing.  No one in this family is going to make you eat peanut butter sandwiches while they eat lasagna.  That’s just...rude!”

“I’m sorry,” Jasmine said in a tiny, weak voice.

“Don’t be sorry!  See, you just met Steve, so you’re not so sure you can trust him like you trust Amy, right?”

Jasmine didn’t say anything; she stood and squirmed instead, not wanting to admit that Jeannie was right.  

“It’s okay to feel that way, you know?  It takes a long time some times to get to know someone enough to fully trust them.  I know Steve; I’ve known him for four years.  He is one of the best guys in the world!  If you tell him a secret, he never tells anyone.  He’ll always look out for you.  He’ll do anything to make you happy.  Jasmine, he cares about you so much!  He’s told me that!  You can trust him like you trust Amy - I know you can.  If Amy were here, she'd tell you that too.  But don’t feel bad about how you feel right now, okay?  It’s going to take a long time to get all that icky stuff out of your head.  Steve can help though, if you’ll let him.”

Jasmine nodded and looked down at the ground.  

Jeannie stood up and looked in the restaurant’s windows.  Through them, she saw Steve and Mike, still sitting at the table, but Steve was hanging his head and Mike was trying to reassure him.  

“Tell you what.  Why don’t we go in and talk to Steve, huh?  I bet he feels pretty bad about all this.”

“So he’s mad at me again?” Jasmine asked, obvious fear in her voice.

“No no...he’s mad at himself.  He’s new to this whole dad thing, and I’m sure he doesn’t want to make any mistakes, yet he did, so he’s beating himself up over it.  But if the two of you are honest with each other and tell each other how you feel, he’ll learn and everything will be okay.”

Jeannie leaned back down and looked in Jasmine’s eyes.  “He just wants to be a good dad, and he wants you to be happy.”

“He is a good dad,” she replied.

“Let’s go tell him that then, okay?”

The two walked hand in hand into the restaurant and over to the table.  Jeannie could tell that Steve had been subjected to The Wisdom of Mike Stone and that it had worked a little - he didn’t look as distressed as he had when they left.

Jasmine let go of Jeannie’s hand and stood in front of Steve.  She could see the anguish on his face and it bothered her enough that she looked down at the booth instead.  “I’m sorry I made you feel bad.”

He looked down at the sad child standing before him.  “You’re sorry you made _me_ feel bad?  I'm the one who should be sorry.”  

Scooting over on the bench, he patted the space next to him hoping that Jasmine would sit down.  She was reluctant but eventually hopped up and sat near the edge.

"Honey, why don't you tell Steve what you told me?" Jeannie suggested.     

Jasmine started to talk several times but never could spit anything out.  She just kept looking around at all the people in the restaurant.  Steve decided that maybe it would be better if they talked in private, so back outside the duo went, leaving Jeannie to explain everything to her father.  Before Steve got away, she whispered the words _trust issues_ into his ear.

 _With me?_ he mouthed back.

Jeannie just sort of shrugged and mouthed, _The past was very cruel._

Steve walked Jasmine back to the car, picked her up, and plopped her on the trunk.  “Okay, Kiddo, it’s just you and me.  No one else is around to hear.”

She looked nervous, and Steve couldn’t exactly figure out why.  She had always been forthcoming with him before - at least he thought she had.  Maybe she had been keeping a lot of things locked away.  He had a good feeling her mother - wherever she was - was doing the same with events from her past.  He had paid enough attention in Psychology 101 to know that both girls were probably repressing bad memories in order to simply survive.

He sighed and put his hands on both sides of her face, tilting her head up to look at him.  “I wish Amy were here right now.  She’d know what to say,” he told the little girl sadly.

“Is she dead?” Jasmine asked, much to Steve’s surprise.

He swallowed hard and placed his hands on the trunk of the car, one on each side of his daughter.  “I want you to trust me.  I want you to know that without a doubt, I will always tell you the truth.”  He paused.  “But what’s going on with Amy...is very complicated...and I don’t have a lot of answers.”

Jasmine saw tears building up in the corners of Steve’s eyes.  “If it’s bad...I can handle it.  I handle bad stuff all the time,” she told him soberly.

Steve shook his head.  “I know, but you shouldn’t have to anymore.  I was supposed to make sure that you and Amy didn’t have to live through any more bad stuff...and then I go and make you cry.”

He stepped away from the car and looked away from Jasmine.  She folded her arms over her chest as if she were freezing.  From behind, he heard her say, “Amy called them triggers.”

He turned around.  “What?”

“Triggers.  Things that happen that remind you of something bad that happened before.  She told me what to do if something reminded me of something my mom or dad did or said that was bad, but I forget to do them a lot.”

Steve looked at her and reflected on the last couple hours.  “So golf triggered the memory of your mom leaving you...and what I said triggered...what?”

“One of the ways they would punish me was to not feed me.  Or, like, they’d eat a lot of food in front of me and only give me a bowl of cereal or something.  Once I got a piece of bread and they ate steaks.  Most of the time I didn’t even do anything...sometimes I did.  I thought I did today.”

It all made sense now.  “You thought I was punishing you for what happened at the golf course, and that we were all going to eat ice cream while you didn’t get any…”

Jasmine looked at the ground as if she were horribly ashamed by what she’d done.  “I’m sorry!” she cried as she broke down.

Steve approached the car again and grabbed her off the trunk, pulling her into an embrace.  As she cried into his shoulder, he tried to help her change her thinking.

“I’m gonna tell you something...and I know it’s probably not going to sink in right away, but I want you to try and believe me, because I am telling you the truth.  Nothing - absolutely nothing that happened to you while you were living with the Duncan’s was your fault.  Nothing!  I don’t know why, but they were just cruel, angry people who took out their anger on you.  You didn’t deserve it, and it wasn’t because of anything you did.  But those memories are going to be stuck in your head for a long time, and they won’t come out easily.  We will get them out though.  If you and me and Mommy work real hard, we’ll get them out, and then you won’t remember what it was like in that house anymore.”

“Mommy’s told me that before too,” Jasmine muttered.

“Then it must be true, huh?  We just need to sit down and talk about everything.  Talking about what happened helps get it out of your brain.  I will try not to say any more triggers.  The last thing I want to do is hurt you and make you cry, Princess.”

She picked her head up off Steve’s shoulder.  “It’s not your fault.  Mommy would say you didn’t do it on purpose.  She’s said it before.”

He took his right hand and wiped tears off her face while he asked, “So this has happened before?”

She simply nodded.

“Well, I’m still very sorry that I made you think I was being like them.”

“You’re not like them at all.  Mommy loves you...and she hated them.”   

Steve tried to smile, but the situation was too grim to even take comfort in Amy’s love for him.  “Speaking of Mommy…”

“Is she dead?” Jasmine asked again, trying to ebb her tears.

“Honestly...I don’t know,” he answered morosely.  “I really don’t know.”

Jasmine gave him a questioning look, so he took a deep breath and elaborated.  

“Her mom...her mom took her somewhere, and we don’t know where they went.  Grandpa and I are trying to find her…”

Jasmine started stroking his hair.  “She told me her mommy wasn’t very nice to her either.”

“She’s not.  And Mommy still wasn’t feeling well, so…”

“You guys will find her.  Spider-Man always found Gwen and MJ.  You and Grampa will find Mommy,” she said with all the confidence in the world.

“You sound like you know for sure.”

She nodded.  “Superheroes always beat the bad guy.”

“Oh.  Then how come Gwen is dead?”

She shrugged.  “I dunno, but Green Goblin is dead too.”

Just then, Mike and Jeannie slowly approached.

“Is everything alright out here?” Mike asked cautiously.

Steve and Jasmine looked at each other.  “It will be, eventually,” Steve told him.

Jeannie looked at Jasmine.  “We were going to go to ahead and get some ice cream, but we didn’t know what you liked.  How would you like to go back in with Mike and get us all some?”

She nodded, and Steve put her down.  She walked over to Mike, took his hand, and the two walked back toward the restaurant.

Before they got too far, Jasmine turned back and said, "I trust you, Daddy."  She turned back around and continued walking.  Jeannie patted Steve's back, glad that they had at least worked something out.

It was then Mike's turn to look back at Steve.  He gave his partner a knowing and encouraging smile.  Steve grinned back.

"You're a real natural with her you know," Jeannie told Steve after the other two disappeared into the restaurant.  "She's a little younger than the girls you typically spend time with..."

Steve smirked.

"...but it's like you've been doing this your whole life.  She adores you, even when you do say stupid things.”

Steve scoffed.  “Getting girls wrapped around your finger is easy.  You listen to them when they speak, you occasionally compliment them, and as long as you’re free and easy with your money, they’ll hang on your every word and move.  Age is irrelevant.”

Jeannie rolled her eyes.  “Oh please!  Us girls aren’t all so insipid and easily impressed!”

He chuckled.  “Maybe there are exceptions.  It doesn't seem to work on you."

She blushed but quickly uttered, "I'm immune to your playboy charms, Mr. Keller."

He looked up at the restaurant.  “I don’t get it though.”

“Get what?” Jeannie asked.

“We’ve known each other, what, a month?  And most of that wasn’t spent together.  Yet she took to me almost immediately.”

“What’s so confusing about that?”

Steve turned his attention back to Jeannie.  “Well...okay, a couple years ago I was seeing this woman who had a son who was about Jasmine’s age.  At first the kid acted like I was the boogie man and was gonna eat him.  He wouldn’t come within ten feet of me.  When that passed, he hated me.  I’ve never heard ‘You’re not my dad’ so often in my life.  And I was around that kid far more than I’ve been around Jasmine!”

Jeannie smirked.  “You do realize all kids aren’t the same, don’t you?”

Steve smirked back.  “Yes I realize that.”

Jeannie nodded and then asked, “Do you want my two cents?”

“Kinda why I asked.”

“Okay.  Let’s compare the two.  This boy didn’t grow up in a house where both his parents acted like they couldn’t stand him, did he?”

“Not even.  Kid was terribly spoiled.  He was his mom’s little prince, and she made sure he knew.  It was one of the many reasons we broke up.”

“Uh huh.  So he had plenty of love and attention and didn’t need to seek it out elsewhere.  He also never felt like he was living through some kind of hell either I take it?”

Steve slowly shook his head.  

“Jasmine on the other hand, for all intents and purposes, has never had a life where she had a family that loved her - until now.  For all six years of her life, she’s been almost starved for affection!  Amy was the only person who gave her any, so she basically continued to starve, at least with fatherly attention.  She wanted a mommy _and_ a daddy to love her, just like all her friends at school probably had.  Now, she’s got what she always wanted.  She has Amy as her mom and you as her dad.  She looks at you two and sees a normal couple; you guys show her affection as well as showing each other.  It is what she has longed for all her life.

“Plus, and I shouldn’t say this after what you said earlier…”  She chuckled before continuing, “but you pay attention to her!  You listen to her, you act like you care about what she has to say, you care about her feelings and make sure she’s happy...how could she not love you?”

Steve felt like arguing her points, but he really had no counter arguments.  It still sounded crazy to him, but at the same time made perfect sense.

“You feel the same way you know, and it’s still just been that same small amount of time.  So I should ask you the same question.”  She paused then added, "You know what I think it is?”

Steve stayed silent.

“She gives you the same thing you give her.  Sure, you put on this act of being the tough guy, the love ‘em and leave ‘em bachelor, but you’re still human.  I don’t know a single person who doesn’t, even deep, deep down, want to be loved and needed...even if comes from a highly-unexpected source.  Embrace it, Steve.  It may be the best thing that ever happened.”   

He sheepishly grinned and looked down at the ground.  Jeannie had hit the nail on the head.  An empty part of his heart was now full and it had changed him for the better, even if it had taken a lot less time than normal.

"Do you think I can do it?" he asked quietly.

"Do what?"

He looked up.  "Be a good dad."

Jeannie grinned and looked toward the restaurant.  "Well...I don't want to brag, but I think you have a pretty great mentor."

* * *

While they waited to order ice cream at the busy counter, Jasmine decided to discuss something with Mike.

“Grampa, when is Father’s Day?” she asked as she continued to look through the glass at the many varieties of the frozen dessert.

“Well...let’s see.  It’s always in June, and we’re still in May...a couple weeks away maybe.  Why?”

“Elisa and Lydia were talking about what presents they were gonna give their dads for Father’s Day.  Is that what kids are supposta do for Father’s Day?  Give their dads presents?”  

Mike found himself hit with confusion.  Was she serious about not knowing what to do for Father’s Day or was she just curious about what to do for Steve?  He preferred it be the latter but was sure it was the former given what he had come to learn about Carl Duncan.  

He looked down at her.  “Sometimes.  There are other things kids do for their dads.”

“Oh.  Did Jeannie do anything for you when she was little?”

Mike smiled at the sudden rush of memories of Father’s Days past.  They involved everything from homemade finger paint pictures to meals that were over and undercooked to day trips.  “She gave me a lot of great gifts.”  He paused.  “What did you use to do for your dad?” he asked.

She looked up and him, her nose scrunched up.  Her mouth opened as if she were about to explain, but then she put her lips back together and shook her head instead, turning back toward the snack counter.  “He didn’t like holidays,” was her explanation.

Mike couldn’t believe what he was hearing.  Father’s Day was always one of his favorite days, if for no other reason than it was a reminder that he was a very lucky man to be the father of such a wonderful daughter.  He could not stand the fact that a man would not care enough about his daughter’s love that she grew up not even knowing what to do on Father’s Day.

“Father’s Day is for good daddies, right?” she then asked.

Again, Mike was at a loss for words.

“Cuz my other dad wasn’t.  So if you give presents to dads for being good dads, then I need to give Steve something really big.  He’s a much better dad than my other dad was."  She took Mike's hand.  "Will you help me give him something really great so that he knows I love him and always want him to be my daddy?"

The whole conversation was testing emotions Mike hadn't used in a while.  He leaned down to Jasmine's eye level.  "Are you afraid he's not going to be your dad some day?"

Jasmine just stared at him for a bit, not saying or doing anything else.  "Can I tell you a secret?  You can't tell Steve at all!"

Mike was afraid of where this was going, but he pinky swore he wouldn't say a word.

"Once, I was bein' bad, and my bad mom told me she was gonna send me away to the circus.  I didn't believe her, cuz I'd never seen kids in a circus.  But then later I heard dad tell her that he was sick of me being a brat and maybe he should give me away to an orphanage.  That's where kids nobody wants go.  He said he really didn't want me and he was..."  She paused and bit her lip.

"He was what, Pumpkin?" Mike asked.  "You can tell me."

She leaned in and whispered, "It's a bad word."

Mike smiled in relief that that was all it was.  "Is there a good word that means the same thing?"

She shrugged, so Mike told her to whisper it in his ear.

"Mad," he told her.  "He was mad that...?"

"That someone named Gloria stuck him with me.  He said he wished she woulda just had me and left town with me."

The mysterious real mother Amy had mentioned in her discussion with Millie Cox.  She had been right when she said Jasmine overheard everything.  Mike wondered if Jasmine understood that this Gloria person was her birth mother, but he figured it really didn't matter.

He took both her hands in his.  "So, you think if you're bad, Steve will send you to an orphanage?"

She nodded.  "Maybe even if I'm not bad.  My dad used to tell me I was annoying too."

"So your mom told you she was going to leave you somewhere, then she was going to sell you to the circus.  Your dad wanted to put you in an orphanage.  Did I get that right?"

Jasmine nodded.  

"And you think Steve will do that too because he's your new dad?"

She shrugged.

Mike pulled her close and gave her a tight hug.  "Oh, Sweetheart, not all dads do that!  In fact, most are glad to have their kids, and would never send them away!"

He pushed her away and looked in her eyes.  "I know Steve very well, and I know he loves you very much.  He will never ever do anything your old dad did."

"Even if I'm a brat?"

"He may punish you, but he's gonna keep you."

Jasmine looked at him without saying anything.  Mike could tell that she still wasn't a hundred percent sure.

"All the bad things that happened to you before, with the Duncans, will never happen again.  I promise you.  It's over.  Do you believe me?"

She shrugged.  "I think so.  I just don't want him to get tired of being my daddy like my other dad did.  You never got tired of being Jeannie's daddy?"

"No, not at all!  I'm very happy to be her dad.  I have never known a mom or dad who gave their kids away because they got tired of being parents.  Steve will not give you up.  Never."

The six year old curled her lips into a slight smile.  "Will you still help me give him a present?"

"Absolutely," Mike told her, smiling.

* * *

Steve came out of the bathroom of the hotel room he was sharing with Jasmine.  He’d taken a quick shower, leaving the little girl to amuse herself with the television.  Standing in a t-shirt and pajama pants and drying his hair with a towel, he first looked at the bed by the wall and saw her already in her pajamas, lying down curled up in a ball, and hugging the teddy bear Jeannie had bought her in Arizona.  Then he looked at the TV and saw what appeared to be a Disney film.

“Cinderella?”

Jasmine nodded.  "She's my favorite princess."

Steve hung the towel around his neck and took a seat on the other bed.  "Why is she your favorite?"

Very seriously she explained, "Because my family treated me like that too.  And Amy.  Amy's mom treated her bad.  We both needed a handsome prince to save us."

Steve turned and watched the television, thinking about what she had just said.  She was absolutely right - Janice Duncan had treated Jasmine similarly to how Lady Tremaine treated Cinderella.  Margaret was no better.

"I always wanted Amy to get invited to a ball where she could meet Prince Charming and they'd get married and then take me away and we'd live happily ever after."

"Happily ever after, huh?"

Jasmine sat up and nodded.  "Prince Charming would save us, because he's a good guy.  He'd take Amy and me and love us and give us the perfect life."

Steve grinned as he recalled his and Mike's earlier conversation.  "You do know that Prince Charming is just a character, right?  A lot of characters on TV and in movies seem perfect, but they're not like real people."

She nodded and hopped off the bed, wandered over to the television, and turned it off.  She then walked over to Steve.  "I don't want him to save us anymore anyway."

He looked down at her.  "Oh yeah?  You want Spider-Man to save you instead?"

She smiled and shook her head.  "You already did, and you're better than Prince Charming and Spider-Man."

"I saved you?"

She hopped up on the bed next to Steve and wrapped her arms around him.  "Mommy even said so.  She told me that you saved her from that bad man...and from herself, whatever that means.  And you saved me from my family too."

"When did she tell you that?"

"When we were all at the hospital.  You were asleep.  She said you were her hero."

"Not much of one," he muttered.

Jasmine looked up at him, confused.

"I don't feel like a hero or a prince.  That's all."

She got up on her knees and put her arms around Steve's neck.  "Are you sad?"

He looked down at his lap.  "Maybe a little."

"I used to be sad a lot.  I didn't tell Amy this because when I told her things like this it made her cry."  She paused and Steve wondered if she was going to do the same.

"She'd put me to bed, and when she thought I was asleep, she'd go home.  A lot of times I wasn't asleep though."

Steve turned his head and looked at her.  "Why not?"

"Because I was scared."

He put his arm around her waist.  "Scared of what, your mom?"

"And dad.  Sometimes I would hear them fighting at night.  It was so loud and I thought they'd do something to me.  I heard them breaking things too.  Sometimes I heard nothing.  That's when I knew I was alone."

"Alone?  You don't mean all by yourself in the house, do you?"

"Yeah.  I don't know where they went, but they weren't in the house."

"You were in the house all by yourself?"

"Mmm hmm.  So I'd take my stuffed animals into my closet and cry myself to sleep in there.  But I don't have to do that anymore because you saved me.  You'll never leave me alone at night...at least I hope not."

"You hope..."  He turned and picked her up, laying her down on the bed.  He then stood up, grabbed her teddy bear off the other bed, and handed it to her.  After tucking her in, he walked around the bed and lay down on his right side beside her.

"Listen, Princess Jasmine - you, me, and Amy...we're stuck together now."

"Forever?"

"Forever and ever.  You don't have to worry about your mom, and soon Amy won't have to worry about hers...the only people we'll have to worry about is each other.  No more nights alone, no more crying yourself to sleep...no more being scared, okay?  That sound good?"

Jasmine nodded.  "We'll be a family?"

Steve nodded.  "Yes we will.  A very happy family.  I promise."  He was doing a spectacular job of keeping his own fears out of his words.  

She smiled, rolled over, and kissed him on the lips.  "I love you, Daddy," she said before rolling back over, kissing the top of her teddy bear's head, and closing her eyes.

"I love you too, Princess," he said quietly.  He then reached over, turned off the lamp, and lay back down.  He took his daughter's hand in his and closed his eyes.

Moments later, her little voice popped up and said, "Betty."

"Huh?"

"Mommy is Betty because Betty has brown hair and so does Mommy.  Gwen had blonde hair and Mary Jane's is red."

Steve took a second to realize what she was talking about.  "Oh.  Is that good?"

"Mmm hmm."

There was a bit of silence before Jasmine added, "She did have blonde hair once."

"Who did?"

"Mommy."

Steve's eyes flew open even though he could only partially see his daughter in the moonlight from the window.  "She did?"

"I dunno why, but she did.  I guess she could be Gwen then."

Having Amy be compared to the one dead girl didn't settle so well with Steve.  "Who'd you say threw her off the bridge?"

"The Green Goblin."

"What's he like?"

"Very mean.  And crazy!  He really hates Spider-Man and kidnaps Gwen to get back at him.  They get into a fight and he throws Gwen off a bridge.  Spider-Man tries to save her by catching her in a web, but her neck was broken and she was dead.  Peter blamed himself.  He swore he'd get back at Green Goblin, and they fought, but Spider-Man couldn't kill him cuz he's a good guy.  One of Green Goblin's stupid gadgets ended up killing him."

"Hmm," was the only response Steve could utter.  "Let's stick with Mommy being Betty then, huh?"  There were too many similarities for Steve to think about.

"Besides, it's all fake anyway.  Why don't you go to sleep and think about Cinderella at the ball instead?" he suggested.

"Okay, Daddy."  She squeezed his hand before falling silent again.

Steve lay in the dark silence of the room, thoughts of wicked families and evil villains flooding his brain.  He had a feeling it was going to be a long night.

* * *

He was right.  A couple hours into his supposed sleep, he was wide awake again, unable to keep his eyes closed.  He kept thinking about the years of hell stuck inside Jasmine’s head and how troublesome it would continue to be for her.  Then he thought how challenging it would be for everyone.  Jasmine’s past, along with Amy’s, were going to haunt the two for years to come.  Add to that whatever Amy was currently going through, and Steve worried that any happiness the three had was going to all but disappear.  The thought of both girls being out of his life due to the villainous acts of others infuriated him.

Unable to lay still, he got up and quietly paced the room.  After that became irritating, he stood by the window and watched the sparse 2 A.M. traffic below.

Eventually some people came out of a restaurant and caused a loud ruckus.  Steve took to watching the action, becoming very interested when the local police came by to referee.  It reminded him of the short time he had spent in black and whites.  It was scenes like this that made him realize how much he appreciated homicide.

Sheets rustling broke him out of his thoughts.  He turned to find Jasmine sitting up.

“Whatcha doin’?” she asked, rubbing her eyes.

“Nothing.  I just couldn’t sleep.  You should go back to sleep though.”

She ignored his suggestion and got up instead, walking over to him and looking out the window.

“What’s all that?” she asked, referring to the scene below.

“A bunch of people got into a fight.”

“Oh.  Daddy?” she asked, still looking down at the street.

“What?”

“Where do you think Mommy is?  Do you guys know?”

Steve didn’t say anything for a moment.  “Grandpa thinks she’s in Omaha.”

“Is that in California?”

“No, it’s in Nebraska.  Middle of the country.”

“Is it far away?”

“Pretty far.”

“Airplane far?”

Steve grinned.  “Yeah.  Airplane far.”

She fell silent as she seemed engrossed in the activity below.  “Take me with you,” she said, seemingly out of nowhere.

“Excuse me?”

She looked up at him.  “I want to go find Mommy with you.  I don’t want to go back to school and worry if you find her or not.”

“Sweetheart, I can’t take you with me.  This is all police business.”

“Is Jeannie going?”

Steve nodded.

“She’s not a cop, is she?”

The two stood and stared at each other.  She did have a point, but he also feared that they were going to walk into something dangerous and he didn’t want her anywhere near that.

“Honey, I don’t know what we’re going to find there.  We may not even find Mommy.  And I don’t want to take you somewhere where you might get hurt.”

“So Grampa wouldn’t want to take Jeannie into that either then, right?  She and I can stay in the hotel until you find Mommy.  Pleeeease, Daddy?  I can’t go back to that school alone!  I wanna see Mommy!”

Steve looked at her sympathetically.  “I know you do, and I’m sure she wants to see you too, but you still have to go to school.”

“School’s almost over.  I’m not gonna learn anything now anyway.”

“Jasmine, I know this is hard for you to understand, but technically, I can’t take you just anywhere I want.  I shouldn’t even have you here.  You don’t belong to me until a judge says you do.”

Jasmine sighed.  “Fine.”  She then walked over to Steve’s bed, grabbed her teddy bear, and took it over to her bed.  She climbed in, got under the covers, and turned away from him.

He too abandoned the entertainment below and lay back down in his bed.  Staring at the ceiling, he thought about everything.  Could he do a lot of sweet talking and take her to Nebraska without the Lynches finding out?  If she came with, they could leave a day earlier than planned.  And, depending on Amy’s condition, she would definitely love to see her daughter…


	30. Chapter 30

**_Saturday, May 25, 1974_ **

_Steve found himself walking along an abandoned Golden Gate Bridge in the middle of a breezy night.  The world was silent save for the occasional blowing of a foghorn, the rippling of the water below, and the wind rushing by his ears.  It was chilly, but all he was wearing was a black turtleneck and jeans.  As he walked, he kept trying to figure out how he even got on the bridge.  He didn’t remember driving there, and he certainly wouldn’t have walked all the way from his Union Street apartment, which was over five miles away.  And where was everyone?  There was never a moment when this landmark was deserted, so why was it now?_

_He shivered and continued to walk.  He was cold, but he was also quite apprehensive.  Something about the whole scene seemed off to him.  It felt like there was horror hanging in the air ready to choke the life out of any living thing.  In his career, he had felt this way several times before - usually as he walked into a house blind - but this was double as fearful for him._

_In the dark, he couldn't tell if he was walking north toward Marin County or south toward San Francisco.  The darkness was thick like fog and Steve couldn't see a foot in front of him, let alone the water below.  He figured he would walk until he hit land and then maybe something would make sense._

_Suddenly, in the midst of a strong breeze, he heard what sounded like a woman's voice.  It was too far away to make out the words, and he couldn't tell which direction it was coming from.  He stopped and listened as intently as he could._  Say something else, _he thought._  

_The sound came again.  It was still a toss up, but Steve decided that it came from straight ahead, so he started walking again, picking up the pace._

Steve! _he swore the voice said._  Steve!

_He started running.  The further he ran, the louder the voice became._  Steve!  Help!

_He recognized it now.  "Amy!  Amy, where are you?"_

_"You're getting close!  Keep running!"_

_He kept running, his breathing heavy from both the exercise and the apprehension.  What trouble would he find her in?_

_"Stop!" she shouted.  "Look to your right."_

_He did as instructed...and immediately began to panic.  Even in the enshrouding darkness, he saw his love standing precariously on the edge of the bridge, bay-side.  Behind her was a ghostly green figure holding her hands behind her back.  It was the only thing keeping her from falling into the unforgiving water below._

_"Well, if it isn't Steve Keller...or should I say Spider-Man?"  The figure let out a menacing cackle._

_Even though he had only spoken to her once, and had yet to see her in person, he knew this green figure wasn't the Green Goblin - it was Margaret Johnson._

_"I'm sorry.  She made me tell her your secret," Amy explained._

_"It...it's okay, Sweetheart," he muttered, not exactly sure what was going on._

_He turned his attention to Margaret.  "What do you want?"_

_"Oh, you care about my feelings now, do you?  How noble!  My daughter keeps babbling about what a hero you are.  She just will not shut up!  'Mom, he's such a great guy!  He saved me, Mom.'  Great guy, huh?  Do great guys take children away from their mothers?  Do they!?"_

_"I'm not trying to take her away from you," Steve quickly spit out._

_Margaret laughed again.  "That's a good one.  Almost believable.  But that's not what guys like you do.  You take and take and take, all in the name of saving humanity!  Who cares if a few lost souls get stepped on along the way?  You saved humanity!  You made the city safe!  But who determined it was unsafe to begin with?  You?!"_

_Steve found himself at a loss for the right words that would appease Margaret.  "I don't make the rules; I just enforce them."_

_"And where in those rules did it say my daughter needed saving?  Where does it say I can't protect her?  Where?!  We were just fine until you came along and started filling her head with lies!  She didn't need saving!  She had me!"_

_Margaret sighed.  "But what can you expect from a two-faced man with a hero complex?  Well, you may have convinced the rest of San Francisco that they need you - but I know better.  And I will stop you."_

_Now he was irritated.  "Just how do you think you're gonna do that?"_

_"By making your guilt eat you alive.  You enjoy taking girls from their mothers, do you?  You think you're saving them?"_

_"I am saving them," he answered confidently._

_"Then let's see you save two at once."_

_She turned to her left and snapped her fingers.  A few hundred feet down the bridge, a mist began forming, thickening as the seconds ticked by.  Soon the wind blew the mist away and revealed a very familiar scene.  This time, Janice Duncan was standing behind Jasmine, who, like Amy, was dangling on the edge of the railing._

_“Daddy!” Jasmine cried.  “Help me!”_

_He quickly looked back and forth between the two girls who meant the most to him...and realized what was about to happen._

_“We can talk about this,” he told Margaret, panic and desperation in his voice._

_She grinned like the Cheshire Cat.  “I love how scared you are.  Maybe you are human.  Maybe.”_

_He turned to Janice.  “You don’t even love her!  What does it matter to you if we take her?”_

_She laughed.  “You’re right; I hate her.  She ruined everything that was supposed to happen to me.  But why would I want her to be with you?  She’s happy with you and that cretin over there,” she growled, pointing toward Amy.  “I don’t want her to be happy! I want her to be as miserable as she made me!”_

_“You’re not going to be able to save them both, Inspector. It’s impossible,” Margaret informed him arrogantly._

_He shook his head and slowly began walking toward the side of the bridge.  “I can save them both.  You girls believe that, right?  You know I can save you.”_

_Jasmine stayed quiet, but Amy said something that drove a stake right through Steve’s heart._

_"No, Steve, you can't.  It_ is _impossible."_

_"Amy...what are you saying?"  He was completely blindsided by her distrust._

_"I'm being realistic.  Even if I fell faster than her, you still wouldn't be able to catch us both.  The distance is too short, and you can't swing back to get the second person in time."_

_"Yes I can!" Steve insisted.  "I have to!  Superheroes always get the bad guy!"_

_“He’s right; they do,” Jasmine insisted._

_“No, Honey, he’s wrong.  Sometimes they fail.  They all fail.  Steve is human; he’s not a hero...just a cop who couldn’t find me.”_

_Steve lost all color in his face and his body felt like it was going numb.  "But you said I was your hero..."_

_"If you were truly a superhero...we wouldn't be in this position."  She turned back toward the water and looked down.  "Save her, Inspector Keller.  Let me go."_

_"No!" Steve shouted at her.  He started to run until he hit the edge of the bridge.  "I will save you both!  I will prove to you that I am the guy you told Jasmine I am!"_

_He immediately tried to remember back to his high school physics class.  How long would it take them to fall?  He knew from being on the police force - and hearing about the many suicides off the bridge - that it did not take long, but just how long did he have to make the save?  The formula wasn’t coming to him, so he tried to figure out how he could catch them both at the same time._

_“Daddy!  Attach webbing to the bridge to catch one of us and then swing down to catch the other!” Jasmine shouted._

_Steve looked down at his wrists and then flicked them in Amy’s direction.  Out came a webbing that wrapped around all but her head._

_“Oh really?  I don’t think so!” Margaret barked as she pushed her web-encrusted daughter down toward the icy water.  A millisecond later, Janice did the same with Jasmine._

_Steve jumped into action.  He quickly attached Amy to the bridge then shot out another web.  This one attached him to the railing.  He then jumped down and swung after Jasmine.  However, given that the distance from the deck to the water was only 245 feet, the little girl hit the Bay in a mere four seconds.  By the time he got there, she was sinking to the muddy bottom._

_“Should I have told him that she doesn’t know how to swim?” Janice asked Margaret before laughing hysterically._

_Thinking he could still save her, Steve disconnected from the webbing and dove into the water.  He had always been a good swimmer, but now he was Olympic-caliber and diving toward the bottom of the Bay was quick and easy.  Seeing Jasmine as she slowly floated downward, he swam over to her, snatched her up, and immediately headed toward the surface.  Once there, he took an inventory of his surroundings.  He was in the middle of the bridge, which meant he had over a mile to swim either way to get to land.  Even in the dark, he could see Amy safely hanging from the bridge, her body about halfway down._

_Suddenly, without swimming an inch, he found himself dry and back on the bridge.  Jasmine’s cold body was lying limp in his arms._

_“Do you know what a 75 mile per hour impact does to a body?  Not to mention what the cold water does,” Margaret mentioned._

_Steve looked down at his daughter.  Her head was drooping backward, and her whole body felt broken into pieces.  He knew instantly that she hadn’t survived the fall._

_With tears in his eyes, he carefully laid her out on the road and turned his attention to Amy.  Bending over the railing, he used a burst of strength to pull her dead weight up to the deck.  She too was unresponsive._

_“Did I mention what a sudden stop when you’re moving that fast can do?  Did you learn nothing in school?” Margaret chided._

_Steve checked for a pulse.  This became pointless once he saw how much Amy’s head bounced around._

_“She told you, didn’t she?  But you had to be a hero.”  Margaret and Janice cackled as they both faded away._

_Carrying Amy over to where he had laid Jasmine, he placed her next to her daughter.  Steve sat down on the pavement, took Amy's hand in his, closed his eyes, and let his tears flow._

_"You couldn't save me from being shot in the cemetery, and you couldn't save me from my mother.  I hope your guilt does eat you alive."_

_His eyes flew open and he looked down at Amy, whom he thought was dead._

_"Some hero you are," she added._

_"Baby...I tried.  I really tried."  He wasn't sure who he was trying to convince._

_"Save it."  While her lifeless body stayed on the bridge, Amy's spirit stood up.  "Come on, Sweetie.  We have to go," she told her daughter._

_Jasmine's spirit rose.  "But what about Daddy?"_

_"He's staying here.  He wouldn't go where we're going anyway."_

_"Why are you saying these things, Amy?  I thought you believed in me."_

_"I thought I did too...but we're dead, Steven!  And we wouldn't be if not for you!"_

_The two stared at each other for what seemed like hours.  Every second that ticked by crushed him a little bit more.  The love he used to see in her eyes when she looked at him was dead, replaced by a hate he had never seen before._

_"Let's go, Jasmine," Amy prompted._

_"I don't want to leave Daddy!" she wailed._

_"Now, Jasmine!"_

_The ghostly figure of the little girl approached Steve.  She placed her hands on his cheeks.  It felt like icy cold air._

_With tears in her eyes, she looked at her father and said, "Daddy, wake up."_

“Daddy?  Daddy, wake up.  Wake up, Daddy!”  Jasmine patted Steve’s face until he finally regained consciousness.  His eyes flew open and he saw Jasmine sitting on the bed, both of her hands on his face.  They were warm.

“Are you okay?” he asked, breathing more heavily than normal.

Jasmine nodded and took her hands off his face.  “I think you were having a nightmare.”

Steve looked around the room.  “We’re not even in San Francisco, are we?”

“We’re in Los Angeles, Daddy.  What happened in your nightmare?”

He put his left hand up to his face and rubbed his eyes.  “The Green Goblin threw Gwen off the Golden Gate Bridge and Spider-Man didn’t save her.”

Jasmine lay down and cuddled her father.  “That’s definitely a dream.  Peter lives in New York City.”  She laid her head on his chest and closed her eyes.

The two lay in the quiet morning of the room while Steve gathered his jumbled thoughts.  Even though he realized it was a dream, the broken, cold bodies of his girls scared and saddened him deeply enough in his subconscious that it came over into reality.  He hugged Jasmine extra tight and let a few unnoticed tears run down to his ears.

“Can you swim?” he suddenly blurted out as he wiped the tears away.

Jasmine picked her head up and looked at him curiously.  “No.”

“Well, we’re gonna teach you how.”

She shrugged and lay back down.

“What time is it?”

“I dunno.  I can’t read clocks yet.  I woke up because some birds were being noisy.  Then I saw you having a nightmare.  I knew that’s what it was because I have them.  Mommy said they happen because your brain is trying to solve a problem.”

“Mommy’s pretty smart, isn’t she?”

“Do I get to go with you to find her?” Jasmine asked innocently.

Steve reached over to the nightstand and grabbed his watch.  Squinting, he noticed it was a little past seven.  Even on vacation, he knew Mike would already be up and probably on his second cup of coffee.

“I need to talk to Grandpa first and make a few phone calls.”

* * *

After running her a bath, he sent Jasmine off to the bathroom to bathe and then called Jeannie and Mike to come over.  Discussing the idea of Jasmine coming with them was initially met with hesitation; Mike worried it would technically be kidnapping, and Steve was in enough hot water as it was.  He too was concerned about the safety issue, but Jeannie assured them that while they were running around Omaha hopefully finding Amy, she and Jasmine could easily amuse themselves with shopping or a movie.

Steve assured Mike that he would take the fall should they get in trouble for taking Jasmine out of state, but he had a feeling that Trish and Dave would go along with his plan.  A quick call to the school confirmed Steve’s assumptions.  David was more than happy to stick it to both the Lynches and the school, and Trish was certain that if Jasmine were to have come down with a horrible “flu”, no one would even know she never came back.  Steve wondered if the other kids would ask questions or mention her absence to their teachers, but Trish was sure they wouldn’t even notice, as sad as that made her.  She told Steve to keep them in the loop and wished him luck.

A second call was to TWA to see if they could exchange three Sunday tickets for four Saturday ones.  There was room on a flight that left later that day if they didn’t mind sitting in the emergency exit row.

Steve’s final call was to his lawyer.  After filling the man in on the things he had learned the day before, Steve was informed of the goings on of the lawyer’s private investigator.  He didn’t want to say much, but he assured Steve that not only would they have no trouble getting custody of Jasmine, but criminal charges were likely to be filed against a slew of people.

An hour later, Jasmine finally came out of the bathroom.  She greeted Mike and Jeannie enthusiastically.

“I thought maybe you went down the drain!” Steve teased.  

“Ladies must take their time to be beautiful,” she replied.

The three chuckled.  “Did Mommy tell you that?” Steve asked, getting down on his knees in front of her.

“Yes.  She says you can’t rush a bath.”

Mike shook his head.  “So that’s your excuse, huh?” he asked, looking at his own daughter.

Jeannie slapped him playfully in the side.  “It’s all true, you know!  But what would you guys know about beauty anyway?”

Mike looked at Steve.  “Well I’m hurt.  She doesn’t think we’re beautiful, Buddy Boy.”

Steve shook his head.  “Some women just don’t know beauty when they see it.”

Jasmine laughed.  “You guys are silly!  Boys aren't pretty - they're handsome."

"Are we handsome?" Mike asked.

"Do I get to go?"

Steve laughed and looked up at Mike.  "I'm in for a lot of negotiations when she's a teenager, aren't I?”  He looked back down at Jasmine.  "Yes, you get to come to Omaha with us.”

Jasmine gasped.  “I do?”  She smiled and threw her arms around Steve.  “Thank you, Daddy!”

Mike noticed the equally big grin on Steve’s face as he hugged his little girl back.  It was a moment he wanted to bottle and never lose.

Jasmine pulled away and looked at her father.  “In an airplane?”

Steve nodded.

“That’ll be my second time on a plane.  Last time we sat up front and this lady kept handing me hot towels.  I don’t know why.”

“Well, we’re not going to be sitting in that section this time,” Steve informed her.  “Those seats cost a lot of money.”

“Good.  I didn’t want those things anyway.”  She turned to Jeannie and immediately changed the subject.  “Can you braid my hair?”

As Jeannie took Jasmine into the bathroom to play hair stylist, Steve said, "Hey, you never told us if we're handsome."

Jasmine turned back and looked at both men.  "The handsomest," she announced proudly.

* * *

Karen sat in her wheelchair - which was next to Amy’s bed - and picked at a cinnamon roll.  The guys had gone out to get a real breakfast and see if they could somehow track down their wayward San Francisco friends and left Karen to watch Amy.

Another nurse came in to give Amy a breathing treatment and instead found her dead to the world.  She pulled out a stethoscope and listened to her lungs.

"I guess this can wait," she said, referring to the treatment.  "I really hate to wake her up.  The pneumonia has cleared up a lot, but she hasn't regained any energy since she's been with us."

"The nurse yesterday said she wasn't trying to get better," Karen mentioned.

The nurse nodded.  "I agree with her.  She just seems like the saddest woman in the world."  She turned to Karen.  "You're her cousin, is that right?"

Karen nodded.

"You don't have any idea why she's so despondent, do you?  I mean, I may be way off...but she's a pretty girl.  I bet she's got a great life ahead of her."

"She thinks her boyfriend is dead," Karen answered straightforward.  "Pretty sure that killed her will to live."  

The nurse gasped.  "Oh, the poor thing!  In the accident?"

"Accident?"

"Yeah, the one Amy was in.  Was he in the car with her?  Oh dear...I hope she doesn't think she killed him!"

"Oh...that accident," Karen muttered.  Ben had told her and Tim about it the night before, and while she originally thought it would be okay to play along, now she wanted to let the truth be known.

"She wasn't in an accident," Karen started before going into detail about the entire ordeal in San Francisco, including how the three of them managed to locate her in Omaha.

The nurse stood still in shock and awe during the tale.  When it was over, she was speechless.  She grabbed a chair and pulled it close to Karen.

"I have to say, you just made the day of many doctors and nurses here."

"How so?" Karen asked, confused.

"Well, when she came in, her leg was in an immobilizer, her wrist was in that cast, and she had bandages and only days-old stitches on her torso.  Yet she'd supposedly been found in an abandoned car accident?  

"It was obvious that she was patched up by professionals, but no one could get a straight answer out of her grandparents.  Eventually we stopped asking because, well, all those broken bones could have been caused by an accident, and an untreated punctured lung could definitely give you pneumonia.  But everything had been attended to at some point..."

The nurse looked over at her patient.  "What I don't get is, if she was in a hospital at one point, how did she end up in such terrible shape?  Besides the terrible case of pneumonia, her incisions were all infected, she was dehydrated and malnourished, and it appeared that she hadn't bathed in days."

She looked back at Karen.  "You're okay?"

"Outside of frustration, yeah.  My ribs are still sore, the stab wound has twinges of pain occasionally, my arm itches like mad under this cast, and I haven't put hardly any weight on my leg...but I'm okay.  Great doctors, rehab...a will to live..."

They both turned their attention to Amy, who was still oblivious to her surroundings.

"And you say her own mother took her out of the hospital?"

"Mmm hmm. But Amy wouldn't talk about it last night, and she hasn't been awake since."

"When did you say she went missing?"

"April 30th."

"She came to us on the 14th.  So fifteen days where none of us know what happened."

"Except a whole lot of hell," Karen answered.

* * *

The nurse eventually left to inform everyone of what Karen had told her but not before assuring her that Amy's pneumonia was under control.  Her breathing was still labored, but she was no longer contagious.  She had been put on an antiviral medication that had done some good, but it was mostly up to her immune system to do the rest.

Before she walked out of the room for good, the nurse turned back to Karen.  "Is her boyfriend really dead?"

"We can't seem to find him...but no, I don't think so."

"You know what would help her even more than rest and fluids?  Him."  She smiled and left.

Karen sat and nodded.  "I don't doubt that for a second."

She looked over at Amy, who hadn’t moved a muscle through the entire conversation.  Sighing and realizing that this might be a very long morning, she looked around the room to see if there was anything she could do to keep herself occupied.  Spying the newspapers next to Amy’s bed, Karen decided reading those was better than nothing.  She and Ben had glanced through them the day before, but neither stopped to really read anything more than random headlines.

The first paper she opened was the oldest, dated Saturday, September 14, 1940.  It was an issue of the _Omaha World-Herald_ and pre-dated Karen by more than a decade, but she still found the news of pre-WWII America and Nebraska to be interesting.

Amy must have found it interesting as well - at least one particular article.  She had circled an article about the discovery of a body outside of Bennington and highlighted many sentences.  Karen was surprised that anything had happened in a town the size of Bennington, let alone a possible murder.  As she read the article, paying special attention to the parts Amy had highlighted, she found out that the body of a white male, approximately 40 years old, had been found in a corn field south of Bennington.  Since the corn was still in the field, the discovery took  - according to the coroner’s estimate - a month.  The body was also well off the highway leading into town.  According to the article, the only things that knew this poor man was there were hawks and maggots.

Karen gagged at the thought.  Nothing else was known about the man, and an autopsy would have to be performed to discover the cause of death.  Karen closed the paper, wondering why Amy was interested in that particular article.  Was it because it happened near Bennington?  Had Amy been in Bennington?  Even if she had, what would a 33 year old possible murder have to do with her?

Karen leaned over and looked at the date on the next newspaper.  It was dated a week later, so she opened it and looked for another highlighted article.  She found it on page three.  Authorities now knew the identity of the man thanks to dental records and a Missing Persons' report.  He was 41 year old Roy Dillingston of nearby Washington, Nebraska.  The coroner was ruling his death a homicide as he had been choked and stabbed in the chest multiple times.  Based on insect activity, he had died sometime in early August.  Detectives found no blood at the scene, so they knew he had been dumped in the field.  Since it had been a month since the murder and, as Karen figured, crime scene technology wasn’t what it was in 1974, the police had no solid evidence and no leads.  Interviews with friends and family didn’t yield any known enemies.  If the public had any information, they were encouraged to call the Douglas County Sheriff's Office.

Karen looked up at her sleeping cousin.  “What does Roy Dillingston mean to you?”

She folded that paper back up and turned her attention again to the stack of papers.  The next one was dated February 14, 1941.  Figuring Amy had circled articles in every one of the papers, she flipped through the pages until she found the one calling her attention - and it made a lot more sense to her.

Bennington police had taken a report from a man by the name of Leon Nielsen who claimed he was being stalked and threatened.  Someone kept sending him death threats, following him home, and twice he had had his car broken into.  One time his brake line was tampered with. Amy had written a note off to the side that said, _The police didn’t believe him because of his own record with the law_.  This left Karen to wonder how she found that out; it wasn’t mentioned in the blurb.

She looked at the next paper, dated almost a month later.  This was another report of a dead body in Bennington, though the police knew right away who it was.  It was a 15 year old boy by the name of Jesse.  He was found dead in his backyard, the result of two gunshot wounds to the back.  The police chief surmised that he had been running from someone who shot him as he ran.  There was again little evidence and no witnesses.  The police chief was discouraged about the number of homicides in his tiny town.

"No kidding," Karen mumbled as she again wondered why Amy found this homicide noteworthy.

Amy stirred and opened her eyes.  She found Karen looking at her.

"Hey," Karen said.

Amy replied with the same.  "How long have you been here?"

She shrugged.  "'Bout an hour maybe.  How do you feel?"

"Like crap.  I always feel like crap."

"You can do something about that, you know.  You can cheer up!  We're here now, you're safe..."

Karen could see her words were making no impact on Amy.  “Steve is not dead,” she practically growled.

“Doesn’t really matter either way,” Amy quietly muttered before closing her eyes again.

“Why not?!”

“Because she’ll get away with it regardless.  She’s not in jail right now, so she’s free to kill whomever she pleases.  If it’s not Steve, it will be some other guy who gets in her way.  Or me.  Eventually she’ll get me too.  I’m not sure I even care anymore.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Nothing.  Doesn’t matter.”

Though not sure exactly why, Karen found herself getting angry at her cousin.  “Look, I know you’re a victim and all, and I know this is going to sound like an all-out attack, but someone’s got to do it, and I’m the best candidate."

Amy slowly opened her eyes and glared at Karen.  "Do what?"

"Make you talk...and make you listen."

"Talk about what?" Amy asked, turning her head away from Karen.

"You know damn well what.  I did not come halfway across the country looking for you just to have you not fill in the missing pieces.  The only way you’re gonna come to terms with all this is to get it out of your head.  How else do you expect justice to be served?”

Amy snickered and turned her head to stare at the ceiling.  “Justice.  That’s a good one.”

“You suddenly don’t believe in justice?  That’s odd coming from a girl who’s dating a cop.”

“It’s not odd coming from the daughter of a psychopathic sociopath and the girlfriend of a dead cop!” Amy spat back.

“Why are you so sure that he’s dead?!  Did he die in front of you?!  Did you kill him?!”  Karen was close to screaming.

“Mom said…”

Karen didn’t let her finish.  “Screw what that lying sack of crap said!  She’s as full of shit as that newspaper article that killed him off!”

Tears were streaming down Amy’s gaunt, colorless face.  “Then why isn’t he here?”  She hung her head and bawled, wincing at the pain it was inflicting upon her midsection.  

Karen didn’t even bother to say anything until Amy was done crying.  While she waited, she said a silent prayer that Tim was able to get ahold of Mike and put all the speculation behind them.

Amy's crying triggered a coughing fit, during which the nurse was called in to administer some medication.  After Amy had drunk a couple glasses of water and calmed herself down a bit, she added, “You found me, and you’re not even a detective.  He should have been here by now.  If he is alive...he must not care anymore.  I can’t really blame him.  I mean, who wants to be a part of all this insanity?  He probably saw this as a way out.  She would have stalked and killed him anyway..”

Karen glared at Amy.  “Have you been brainwashed or something?  Do you even hear yourself?  I know you don't feel good, but come on!  Steve’s not being here has absolutely nothing to do with him not looking for you!  We got here first because we had a bit of an advantage.  I had old photos that he didn’t.”  Karen paused and thought that if she told Amy how they found her, she’d be more open to talking about her ordeal in Nebraska.

“See...Steve...or maybe it was Mike...I dunno, one of them mentioned that Aunt Margaret might take you somewhere where she felt comfortable in the past.  You know, somewhere that held some kind of significance for her, but that we wouldn’t think about.  So Steve comes to me and asks about our family.  I have to flat out tell him that I don’t know a damn thing about my mom’s family or anything about her before she met Dad.

“However, I was being transferred to that rehab facility back home, so I thought between Benjy and I, we could go through the house when Mom and Dad weren’t around - maybe find something Mom was hiding that would give us a clue into her past.  We open up her past and we get Aunt Margaret’s too.

“Under Mom’s nose, Benjy managed to find a mysterious key that his friend figured out was to a storage locker.  Once Mom and Dad left for Hawaii, we got into the locker and found a bunch of old photos."

She had set her purse on the floor next to her, so she bent down, picked it up, grabbed all the photos she had brought, and handed them to Amy.

"I wasn’t completely sure at first who these people were until I got to the ones with the Koestlers, but thanks to those, we learned that Mom and Aunt Margaret grew up in Bennington, so I decided to come out here on a long shot.  I thought maybe some of the people in the pictures were still alive and could help."

Silence took over the room as Amy looked through the photos.  "Did you tell Steve about this?" she asked.

Karen sighed.  "I tried, honest I did, but I could never get ahold of him.  It's like he went into hiding or something."

"Or died," Amy threw in.

Karen rolled her eyes.  

“You took a chance that I was out here based just on these photos - no other actual clues?”

Karen nodded.  “And the fact that Aunt Margaret had been in a nut house out here.  We didn’t seem to have any other leads, and neither did Steve last I’d heard, so why not take a chance?”

"Oh look, it's Jack and Lilly," Amy said, looking at one of the pictures and perking up slightly.

“How’d you meet them?  And what’s their story?  We talked to this lady in Bennington who told us that they were kind of the town’s godparents, but I dunno...if that little girl is my mom, then how come she looks so much happier with them?”

Amy glanced over at Karen.  “Too many questions at once.”

“Sorry...but face it - there are a lot of questions that should have been answered years ago.”

Amy nodded slowly.  “You’re right, about Jack and Lilly I mean.  They sort of became those people in the neighborhood whose house is always open.  If you had a fight with your parents or your husband or something, you went to talk to Jack and Lilly.”

Karen chuckled.  “I can’t even tell you what my neighbors’ names are.”

Amy continued to look at the pictures.  “Jack was a police officer in town so he knew everyone, and Lilly worked at a hospital in Omaha.  They’re good people.”

“A cop, huh?  Then I suppose he was very familiar with the Nielsens.  From what I heard, they were kind of the town nuisances.”

Amy flipped through some of the pictures again until she found one of the Nielsen boys.  “That’s too nice a word for it.  Isn’t it great...we don’t know one half of our family, and when we find out about them, they turn out to be mentally unstable and felonious.”

“So Clara and Leon are our grandparents?  I wasn’t a hundred percent sure to be honest.”

Amy nodded.  “They are...unfortunately.”  She sighed.  “Aunt Kaye is the only one who came out of that family normal.”

“I guess that’s why we never heard about them.”

“If your father mentally and physically abused your mother and sister and was arrested a dozen times before you even turned seven, you wouldn’t say much either.”  

“We learned that Clara was put into an asylum because she burned their house down with our moms inside.  The speculation was that she’d had enough of Leon’s abuse.”

Amy nodded.  “Slow descent into madness.  See, the hospital Lilly worked in was a mental hospital.”

Karen’s eyes opened wider.  “Don’t tell me it’s the same in Omaha where…”

“Yep.  Clara knew this, so over the years she turned to Lilly when she needed someone to talk to about Leon.”

“She knew all the dirty secrets?”

“Yeah.  Every rotten thing the man said to his wife and kids...and the beatings…  In psychological terms, he was antisocial.  In layman’s terms - a complete sociopath.  He had no remorse for any harm he caused.  He drank too much and would pick fights with people just because.  Apparently he could be walking down the street and decide to rob a place out of the blue.  He’d get caught and end up in jail.  Clara was always having to go and spend their savings to get him bailed out.  I guess she really didn’t want to - to protect her and her kids and all - but he was so manipulative over her that she couldn’t say no to him.  He’d managed to convince her that she couldn’t live without him.”

Karen couldn’t think of anything to say other than, “Ugh.”

“Lilly said anything she could to convince Clara to leave him.  She’d tell her that there was a man out there somewhere who would treat her and her kids well or that she could get a job of some kind, save money, and move away.”

“Did she ever listen?”

“Surprisingly, yes.  Many women in abusive relationships never leave.  If they do, they almost always end up coming back several times before they leave for good...or are killed.”

Karen shivered at the thought.

“And if they do successfully leave, they don’t trust a lot of other men, but Clara found a boyfriend who was a great guy.  Problem was, because of Leon’s violent temper, they had to see each other on the down low, but Lilly said she was happier during that year she saw him than she ever had been.”

“So how’d she end up snapping if she was so happy?  Did Leon find out?”

Amy shrugged.  “Well…”  She took a deep breath and yawned.  “See, the boyfriend ended up disappearing.  Clara thought Leon had either threatened him or killed him, but there was no proof of either.  A month later, they find the guy’s rotting corpse in a corn field.”

Karen looked over at the newspapers.  “Roy Dillingston!”

Amy looked at her curiously.

“I, uh...looked at some of your newspapers while you were sleeping.  I read the articles you circled.”

“Oh.  Well, Clara was sure Leon had done it, but it’s still a cold case.”

“It is?  I only made it to 1941.”

Amy pointed to the stack.  “Look at the newest ones on the bottom.”

Karen reached over and grabbed a couple papers from the bottom.  They were both dated the current month and year.  She looked at the front page and saw, on the bottom, an article about Douglas County unsolved homicides.

“I kept from going crazy by reading...things.  One thing I read was that series of articles.  When I ran into Mr. Dillingston’s name…”  She looked very seriously at Karen.  “I’d heard it before.”

“You’d heard the name of a man who died in Nebraska in 1940?  Where?  From Lilly?”

Amy shook her head.  “I hadn’t met her yet.  No…”  She turned back forward and looked intently at the wall.  “One of the things I read was old diaries.”

“Whose?”

“My mom’s.  I, um...I found them.  Anyway, I read his name in there.”

Karen noted how Amy kept hesitating or rushing when she would reference her ordeal.  She desperately wanted to know what had happened but realized that now may not be the time to ask.

Instead of pressing the how, she went with the what.  “Aunt Margaret knew her mom’s boyfriend?  Well, that makes sense.”

“No, not really.  Lilly said no one knew, not even the kids.”

“She found out somehow then.  So what did she say about him?  Was she happy?”

“Hardly.  She hated the guy.  No, hated is too weak a word...despised him is more like it.  To be honest, I don't know why, because from what I could gather, she also despised Leon and desperately wanted to see her mother be happy.  But she..."  Amy shivered.

"She what?"

"I think she killed him," Amy answered in a near whisper.

"Who killed who?"

"My mother killed Roy Dillingston."

Karen stared at her in disbelief.  "I know she's nuts, but a murderer?"

"She tried to kill me!  It's not a stretch to think she'd done it before."  Amy yawned and laid her head back before continuing.

"Did you read about Jesse?"

"Yeah, right before you woke up."

"He's in the diary too.  It's all in the diaries...every last detail."  Amy's eyes began fluttering.

"These diaries, you have them?" Karen inquired.

"They're...still in...the barn."

"Barn?  What barn?  Did Aunt Margaret hold you in a barn?  If you tell me where it is, maybe Ben and Tim could go and get the diaries."

Amy said nothing; she was fast asleep.


	31. Chapter 31

**_Saturday, May 25, 1974_ **

The quartet stepped off the plane and into Concourse B.  Despite arriving in the late afternoon, the airport was fairly busy as several flights were scheduled to arrive around that time.  As they made their way downstairs and to baggage claim, Steve kept a tight grip on Jasmine’s hand, occasionally having to drag her along.  She found the airport - though small in size compared to both San Francisco and Phoenix - to be very interesting, and she wanted to stop and look at everything.  She did the same thing in Denver when they stopped for a short layover.

_...Announcing the arrival of Delta Airlines flight 2105 from San Francisco, now arriving at Gate A7._

“Daddy, they said San Francisco!” she announced excitedly.

“They’ll say a lot of cities.  They announce when every flight arrives.”

"Maybe we'll see someone we know," she suggested.

He smiled at her excitability.  "I doubt that.  San Francisco has a lot of people, and I don't know them all."

As they got to baggage claim, Mike excused himself to call the psychiatric hospital and ask them if they could come a day early.  Jasmine spent the time looking around at everyone and everything.  The operation of the airport interested her, and she found the people fascinating.

_Baggage from TWA Flight 1604 from Denver can be claimed at Carousel Two._

Steve got closer to the carousel while Jeannie and Jasmine stayed back.

_Baggage from Delta Flight 2105 from San Francisco can be claimed at Carousel Three._

Jasmine chose to watch the action at Carousel Three.  She wanted to see people from her hometown more than she cared to watch Steve drag their bags off a conveyor belt.

One man in the San Francisco crowd seemed equally as interested in Jasmine's crowd - or more specifically, Jeannie.  The sandy-haired man in a beige corduroy three-piece suit stood and watched Jeannie with an expression of bewilderment plastered on his face.

He saw Jasmine watching him, so he looked down and pretended to be brushing lint off his jacket.  She continued to watch him as he looked uncomfortably all around the baggage claim area and at his watch.  When his eyes landed on a row of payphones, they stopped, seeing someone familiar.

Jasmine followed his gaze and saw her grandfather carrying on a conversation over one of the phones.  She looked back and forth between him and this mystery man, who did not seem to notice Jasmine any longer.  Always the curious sort, she wondered what was going on with this mysterious San Franciscan, and why he seemed so interested in her family.  It worried her.

“Jasmine!  Come back over here please.”  Steve’s voice brought her quickly back to reality.  She turned around and noticed that she had wandered farther away from Carousel Two than she intended.

“Sorry, Daddy,” she said as she wandered back, never really turning completely around.

“I just don’t want to lose you,” told her.

She looked up at him.  “I wasn’t missing.  I just…”  She shrugged.

“Yeah, but I don’t trust anyone else not to snatch you up and carry you off.”

“Like pirates,” Jasmine muttered, looking back over at Carousel Three.

“Well, I don’t know about pirates...what’s so interesting over there?”

She finally turned all the way around and looked up at Steve.  “There’s this guy…”  She turned back to point him out, but he had disappeared into the crowd grabbing their luggage off the carousel.

“He kept staring,” she finished.

“Yeah, there’s always a guy like that.  That’s why I want you to stay close to me.”

He handed her her suitcase and asked if she could drag Jeannie’s since it had wheels.  He then grabbed his and Mike’s and they headed over to the payphones.  Jasmine kept turning around to see if she could see the man in the corduroy suit, but he seemed to be lost forever.

After getting the okay from the hospital, everyone took their own suitcase and headed for the rental car counters, which were on the opposite side of the main floor.  Jasmine lost sight of Carousel Three, so she decided to start looking around at everything else.

Since Steve rented the car in Los Angeles, Mike agreed to rent the one in Omaha.  While he was at the counter working out all the details, Steve turned to Jasmine and asked her if she needed to go to the bathroom.

She shook her head.  “No, I’m fine,” she mumbled as she continued to look at all the travelers.

“Are you sure?  It’s been a while.”

She was busy looking off toward the north terminal when she spotted the corduroy suit coming her way.  He spotted her too and quickly ducked into the alcove that housed the entrances to the north restrooms.  

“Um, maybe I should,” she said, starting to head off toward the north bathrooms despite the fact that she was closer to the south ones.  

Jeannie called out to her, but she was walking away too hurriedly.  Jeannie shrugged and took off after her.

When they got to the alcove, Jasmine stopped dead in her tracks.  “He’s gone!” she whined.

“Who’s gone?” Jeannie asked once she caught up.  

"The creepy man who kept staring at you."

Jeannie narrowed her eyes.  "There was a man staring at me?"

Jasmine nodded.  "He was on the San Francisco plane."

Jeannie relaxed a bit.  "Maybe it was someone who's seen me before.  What did he look like?"

"His hair was the color of playground sand and so was his suit.  He saw me and came in here to hide."

"Well, maybe he just needed to go to the bathroom too.  He's probably no one.  C'mon, let's go ourselves so we can get to the hotel."

Reluctantly, Jasmine followed Jeannie into the restroom.  Moments later, Mark Stilwell popped out of the men's room.  He looked to his right and saw both Mike and Steve busy with the rental car clerk, so he quickly headed to the payphones.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a scrap of paper, dialing the number written on it - 402-555-3904.  He wasn't sure where his accomplice got that phone number or where it even was, but it was the number he was instructed to call if he needed assistance while in Omaha.

"We have a problem," he uttered quickly to the person on the other end.  "They're already here."

"What?  I thought you said they weren't getting in until tomorrow."

"They weren't supposed to.  They were supposed to be in L.A. all weekend, but they're here at the airport now!  What do I do?"

"First of all, calm down.  It's not like they saw you or anything, right?" Holloway asked.

"No...no," Mark spit out.  Sure, Jasmine had seen him, but she didn't know who he was anyway.

"Okay then.  We're in luck, because Kathryn got there yesterday, so she's ready.  I will call her and give her a heads up.  Don't worry; this will all work out fine.  Grab a cab and get there before they do."

The line went dead.  "Easy for him to say," Mark muttered under his breath as he grabbed his suitcase and headed for an exit.

* * *

"Have you seen him since we left the airport?" Steve asked the little girl in his arms.

As they walked through the main entrance of the downtown Omaha hotel, Jasmine looked over his shoulder.  "No."

"Then I'm sure we left him there.  You have nothing to worry about."

Her response was to simply nod.  Overall, she just couldn't shake the weird vibe she got off Mark and hoped that she never had to see him again.

The lobby of the hotel was fancy, yet comfortable.  There were several brown leather club chairs sitting in the middle of the expansive room, each sitting around a coffee table.  Some were placed in front of a large, fancy fireplace.  There was a lounge and restaurant off to the right and gold-plated elevator doors to the left.  

"Nice digs, Jeannie.  How much of your dad's money did you shell out for this?" Steve teased.

"The travel agent said I got a very good deal.  Last-minute booking, so the hotel was desperate to fill the rooms - something like that.  Plus it's close to the airport."

"Uh huh."  He gave her a grin and a wink.

"Don't be a jerk and just appreciate the lavishness I've afforded you."  She stuck out her tongue.

"Yes, Ma'am.  Look, why don't you girls sit here until we get checked in," he said, setting Jasmine down in one of the chairs.

"Okay.  You boys go take care of the business, and we girls will just sit here and look pretty until you get back."  Jeannie smirked at him and sat down.

“You’re pushing it, Jean.  You really are.”  He smiled and walked over to the elaborate marble front desk.

While Jeannie and Jasmine amused themselves with lobby magazines, a bronze blonde in a charcoal gray dress stepped off an elevator.  She straightened the lapels of her notched wing collar, looked down to make sure all the buttons were fastened on the long-sleeve blouse, and straightened the A-line skirt.  Satisfied with her appearance, she began looking around the lobby, hoping that she wasn’t late and had missed her meeting.  Then she laid eyes on the front desk.   _Right on time_ , she thought.

She let out a tiny nervous giggle to herself, mentally rehearsed her lines one more time, and walked toward the desk, pretending she was headed toward the payphones.  With a nonchalant glance at the crowd gathered around the front desk, she looked at her target and as if completely surprised asked, “Inspector Keller?”

Steve instinctively turned around toward the direction of the charming female voice.  He knew right away who this caller was, but now was not the time or the place to let on.

“Steve Keller?  From San Francisco?” she asked again.  

“Yeah…?” he mumbled.

“You probably don’t remember me.  Kathryn Castro?  You and your partner protected me…”

“...from your brother,” Steve finished.  “Sure, I remember.  Didn’t expect to run into you again, especially in Omaha.”

“I could have said the same thing,” she giggled.  “You didn’t move out here, did you?”

Steve shook his head.  “No, no.  I’m, uh, here on business.  A case.”

“Oh...all the way out here, huh?  Murder knows no bounds I guess.”

Steve simply shook his head.  “Do you live out here?”

She chuckled.  “Actually, I’m out here for the same reason you are - business.  There’s a legal secretary’s convention in town, and me and some of the ladies I work with came out, more as an excuse to get away than anything, even if it is Nebraska.”

The two shared a short laugh.

“How’ve you been holding up?” Steve inquired.  “I know it’s been a couple years, but…”

“Having your brother almost kill you doesn’t go away overnight...but I’m doing alright.  The nightmares have really slowed down.”

He wished he could say the same about Amy.  “That’s good.  But only slowed down?”

Inside, Kathryn was smiling.  Sergeant Holloway had suggested she try to gain Steve’s sympathy any way she could - like using how her past ordeal was still affecting her today.  She was originally in doubt, but now that it seemed to be working, she was glad she had made the attempt.

“Well, you know how the brain is; it never seems to want to let go of the bad memories completely.  But I managed to get myself a good job and live normally.  Whenever I go see him though...it kind of all comes back.  It’s hard moving on from a family betrayal.”

Steve looked at her without saying a word.  All he could think about was what she had just said - family betrayal.

“What?” she asked, a bit unnerved at his sudden silence and intense focus.

Steve shook his head as if to shoo away the clouds around it.  “Nothing, it’s just...well, I have a friend who’s going through something similar, and I’m just thinking about how you managed to move past it...and I’m hoping they can do the same.”

Mike, having just taken possession of the keys to two hotel rooms, turned around and saw his partner holding a conversation with someone who looked very familiar - and whose name had been brought up recently.  Being the crack detective he was, nothing about this sat well.

“Well, if you ever want to talk about it, we can get together over drinks and…”  She didn’t get to finish her thought.

“Am I interrupting anything?” Mike interjected.

Both were stunned by the unexpected interruption.  

Steve cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably.  "Uh, Mike, you remember Miss Castro?  We arrested..."

Mike interrupted again.  "Sure, I remember.  Kathryn was it?"  Inside, Iron Mike was fuming.  On the outside, he was the perfect gentleman.

Kathryn extended her hand, and Mike took it in his.  "Nice to see you again, Lieutenant Stone.  I was just telling Steve what a surprise it was to see a couple cops from San Francisco here."

"Yeah, a real surprise I bet."  His response reeked of subtle sarcasm.

"Kathryn's here for a convention," Steve mentioned.

Mike simply nodded.  It sounded like a good excuse.

"Listen, Steve, I was on my way to dinner with colleagues, but if you ever need to talk...my room number is 514.  Gimme a call.  I'd like to help if I can."  She smiled sweetly.

"How long are you in town for?" Steve asked.

"We leave Wednesday.  You?"

"Depends on the case.  I'll, uh, see what my schedule looks like."

Mike narrowed his gaze and looked at his partner out of the corners of his eyes.

"Okay.  I'd love to catch up...with both of you," she quickly added.  "I owe you both a lot.  I'll talk to you later then."

Steve watched her walk off toward the conference rooms.

Mike grabbed Steve's arm with more force than he intended and swung him around.

"What the..." Steve spit out, annoyed with the tight grip on his arm.

Mike didn’t say a word; all he wanted to say came through the look on his face.

“What’s suddenly got you so upset?” Steve asked.

“You...and her.  Now.  Really, Steve?”

“What, I can’t talk to an old friend?”

“Old friend…”  Mike paused.  “Well, talking to this particular old friend during the present situation is not advised, no.”

“Oh, come on!  What kind of man do you think I am?”  

“Lower your voice!” Mike scolded.  “I know what kind of man you are, which is why I’m so surprised at you right now!  We’re here to find your girlfriend, yet you’re standing here flirting with your old one.”

“Flirting with...she is not my old girlfriend!  Nothing happened between us!"

“I think sometimes you forget what I do for a living.  I know exactly what went on between you two.  I knew then, and I was recently reminded of it as well when Holloway tried to use it against you."

Steve straightened his shirt sleeve.  "Alright, alright.  But just because I talked to an ex doesn't suddenly mean I've forgotten Amy!  God, Mike!"

Steve started toward the elevators, completely forgetting that Jasmine and Jeannie were waiting for them in the middle of the lobby.

* * *

While Jeannie had found an interesting article to read in _Newsweek_ , Jasmine had partaken in her favorite hobby - eavesdropping.  From the time she had sat down, her focus was on Steve.  Seeing Mark had rattled her nerves, and her anxiety wanted to stay with her father.  Instead, she had to settle for keeping him in her sights from a distance.

All was well until Kathryn showed up.  Seeing the two of them merely talking and smiling at each other triggered another series of memories - ones involving every man or woman Jasmine saw Janice and Carl flirting with.  She may not have seen any of the aftermath, but she heard the conversations and saw the looks.  Even at her age, she knew something other that friendly banter was going on behind the façade.  

That’s all she could see in the exchange between Steve and Kathryn.  Anyone old enough to correctly interpret body language and think logically might have had a similar reaction as Mike’s, but a six year old with trust issues only saw betrayal.  Steve was betraying her and Amy.  Maybe she had been right the night before.  It wouldn’t have been the first time an adult told her one thing and then showed her another.  The only person in her entire life that hadn’t done that was Amy - who was nowhere to be found.  Why wasn’t Steve out there looking for her right now?  She thought that’s what police were supposed to do - immediately attend to a case.  They weren’t supposed to stand and smile at pretty women.

Then she watched as Mike castigated Steve.  Why was he so upset?  Was it for the same reason that was now upsetting her?  If Mike couldn't even trust Steve, how could she?

When Steve and Mike headed toward the elevators, Jeannie patted Jasmine on the shoulder, and the two walked that way themselves.  

"You don't find it at all coincidental that Holloway brings her up after two years, then two weeks later you run into her...in Nebraska?!" Mike barked as they reached the elevators.

"Are you guys mad at each other?" Jasmine asked apprehensively as she approached the guys.

"What floor?" Steve asked.  "No, Jasmine, everything is fine," he quickly added.

"Nine," Mike answered.

"You sure?" Jeannie asked as Steve slapped the up button.

"Absolutely.  Your father just thinks I'm too young and stupid to make my own decisions, that's all."

"Steve, that's ridiculous," Jeannie scolded.

Jasmine grabbed Jeannie's hand and held it tight.  Everything was fine when they came in, but now it was all tense.  She hated tense.

Jeannie squeezed her hand.  "How 'bout we not discuss this right now, hmm?  I think we need neutral corners."

Steve looked at the walls in front of him and saw a schedule of events listing on the board next to one of the elevators.  

"Look, second thing on the list."  He pointed at the board where it said _National Association of Legal Secretaries - Board Room A & B _.

Mike looked at it and rolled his eyes behind Steve's back.  "Anyone could walk in here, see that, and say that's why they were here."

Steve pursed his lips and once the elevator arrived, stepped on, slapped the number nine, and immediately stood in the corner with his arms folded over his chest.

The other three stepped on.  Once the doors closed, Mike said, "It's not a coincidence."

Without looking at his partner, Steve growled, "Yes, Michael, sometimes it is."

* * *

The quartet chose a restaurant close to the hotel.  It was getting late, and the two detectives had an 8 A.M. appointment at the hospital, so they wanted to stay close to their rooms.  Overall, it was a quiet but strained dinner.  After they had gotten to their room and began unpacking, Jeannie made Mike tell her what he and Steve had been arguing about.  She, like her father, was skeptical of Steve's wanting to talk to Kathryn, but unlike Mike, she was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

In an effort to get any kind of conversation going over their meals, Jeannie innocently asked Steve how he had met Kathryn.  Reluctant at first, he eventually explained the entire situation, including how they had become "friends" as he put it.  

He had gone to her apartment to interview her about her brother, who was a suspect in the killing of a woman found in Golden Gate Park.  She was beside herself that the little boy she had practically helped raise was possibly a murderer.  He was sympathetic to her distress.  They ended up running into each other several times during the investigation, and each time Kathryn was sadder and sadder.  Steve wanted to cheer her up, but the news was just never good.

One night, as Mike and Steve closed in on an arrest, Kathryn's brother snapped and held his sister hostage as a last-ditch effort to evade arrest.  He ended up in handcuffs and she ended up with a nasty bump on the head, courtesy of her brother pistol whipping her.  Steve stayed by her side, stemming the bleeding until the paramedics arrived.  After checking in on her at the hospital, and against his better judgment, the two decided to see where their mutual attraction would take them.  It didn't take them far.

"That sounds familiar," Jeannie noted.  

Steve gave her a less than pleased look.

"Familiar, not exactly the same," Jeannie backtracked.

"That's what I'm afraid of," Mike added.

"And just what does that mean?" Steve questioned.

"That second flame grew out of the ashes the first left behind and sparked just as quickly.  Is the first fire out completely, or is it still able to respark?  You can't have two fires going on at once, you know.  They'll end up burning the whole town down."

Steve looked across the table at his partner and did not mince words.  "Some fires burn hotter and longer than others.  Ersatz, Michael - the first fire was just an ersatz flame.”

“A what?” both Stones asked.

“Inferior substitute.  They may look exactly the same from a distance, but when you get close, one is just a lot of flashy light.  You end up standing in the cold darkness real quick, cursing the fact that you went toward the bigger flame just because you assumed bigger and brighter meant hotter.  I want the fire with the endless supply of fuel."

"And Kathryn's..." Mike prompted.

"Got rained on," Steve replied.  "It's still underwater."

"Let's hope it stays that way," Mike said.

* * *

As they walked out of the restaurant, Steve took Jasmine's hand and asked her why she was so quiet.

"Nothing to say," she answered, not really gripping his hand back like she always had.

"You feel okay?  You didn’t eat much."

She nodded.  "Tired."

"Yeah, it's been a long day."

She didn’t respond; she simply took her hand back, gave it to Jeannie, and asked her adopted aunt if she could sit in the back seat with her.  Steve wondered why his normally affectionate and talkative daughter suddenly acted like she didn't want to be around him.  After getting the passenger’s seat, he realized once again that he didn’t know all her moods.  He was tired as well, and maybe this is just how Jasmine acted when she needed sleep.  She wouldn’t be mad at him for the same reason as Mike and Jeannie after all.

* * *

"Look, I think it would be a better idea if we just stay away from talking about her ordeal.  I know you're desperate to know what happened, but when Mike and Steve get here..."

"When?" Karen interrupted.  "Try if."

"No, when," Tim corrected.  " _When_ Mike and Steve get here, they'll ask her to recall the whole thing as an official statement.  Why make her relive the whole thing twice?  Besides, she'll get through it a lot easier if Steve's with her."

"I can't argue that," Karen said as Tim pushed her down the hospital corridor.  Ben was walking next to them carrying a bag full of Thai food.

"Part of me really doesn't want to know," he added.  "I'm not sure I want to know exactly how evil my aunt is.  I mean, a kidnapper is bad enough, but murderer?"

They stopped outside of Amy's room and looked at each other.

"That is pretty unsettling.  I felt weird when we found out Dad's cousin was a Peeping Tom, and that's not near as bad."  Karen shivered.

"Well, let's not jump to conclusions just yet.  Let's just focus on talking about anything but murder or Steve or anything else.  We'll stick to the weather or sports or whatever will get a smile on Amy's face, okay?" Tim said.

The two Lane kids nodded in agreement, and the trio opened the door and went in the room.

They found Amy staring at the entrance, tightly holding the nurse call button.  When she saw who it was, she let out a breath and threw down the button.

"Thank God it's you guys," she said breathlessly.

"Are you alright?  You act like you were expecting the Boogieman," Karen told her.

Tim wheeled her over to Amy's bed.  Amy was sitting up - something her family hadn't seen since they'd been there.

Amy leaned back on the bed, which inclined as far as it would go.  "Jack and Lilly didn't come this weekend because their grandson had baseball or something.  Anyway, Lilly just called me and told me that when they got home this evening, Mom was gone, and they don't know where she is.  They called to warn me in case she shows up.  I guess she doesn't know what hospital I'm in, but hell, you guys found me!"

Karen slapped her leg.  "So I _did_ see someone in that house!  You guys thought I was crazy!"

"Huh?"  Amy looked at her cousin.  "What house?"

"Jack and Lilly's!  While Tim and Ben were out of the car talking to their neighbor, I stayed in the car and watched the house.  Someone was peeking around the drapes.  When we locked eyes, they quickly shut them.  It makes sense now!  If it was her, then when she saw me she freaked out!  She knows we're on to her!"

"That doesn't sound good though," Ben muttered.

"Well, there's an easy way around this.  At least one of us will stay here at all times," Tim suggested.  "She'll have a tough time getting through us."

Amy attempted a smile.  "I'd appreciate it.  I told them to stay in Iowa in case she was just out somewhere."

"Has anyone thought to call the police?" Karen asked.  "I mean, okay, maybe the Omaha PD isn't our illustrious SFPD, but they could still find and arrest her!"

"But I wasn't kidnapped here!  And what are they going to arrest her for?  Us assuming she'll do something bad?  She could be halfway back to California by now for all we know."

"She took you across state lines!  Even I know that makes this Federal!  We should be calling the FBI!  And why did Jack and Lilly make up the ridiculous lie about you being in a damn car accident?!"  

Tim could see that Karen was starting to lose her cool, and Amy was starting to shut down, so he tried to bring order back to the room.

"You know what?  Our food is getting cold.  Karen said you liked Thai, and the lady at the front desk of our hotel told us this was the best Thai food in Omaha."  He shot Karen an annoyed look.

"Yeah, let's just eat and hang out," Ben added.  "It's Saturday night; we're supposed to be having fun."

Amy nodded.  "It does smell good...and I haven't eaten much lately."

"What a better time to start!" Tim said.  

As he doled out the food and Ben passed around paper plates and plastic forks, Karen sat in her wheelchair and stewed.  Was everyone really so afraid of Margaret that they felt letting her get away with anything was better than getting the authorities involved?  She couldn't believe how ridiculous everyone was acting.


	32. Chapter 32

**_Saturday, May 25, 1974_ **

One thing that Amy had tried to teach Jasmine was that things are not always as they look on the outside.  What looks rotten might hide something beautiful. It started as a lesson about a fellow preschool classmate who wore hearing aids due to significant hearing loss.  Amy helped the then four year old to realize that just because the little girl wore the aids and talked different didn't mean she wasn't still a great girl to befriend.  

Eventually it morphed into lessons- and on Amy’s part several lies - about her parents.  Amy told Jasmine repeatedly that just because she saw something that looked like cheating or abandonment didn’t necessarily mean it was.  With Carl and Janice it almost always was, but Amy didn’t want their impressionable daughter to know what awful human beings they really were.  

During the car ride back to the hotel, "Smile a Little Smile For Me" by The Flying Machine came on the radio.  Jasmine smiled.  This song was a trigger for her but a positive one.  Given the girl’s unhappy home life, Amy spent a lot of time attempting to cheer her up.  Some of those times were after she’d seen Janice flirting with Norman or some other man, or when she’d seen Carl giving suggestive looks to one of his students.  She may not have known why a man would look at a woman that way, but she knew it was wrong, so she’d grow angry or depressed, especially since the attention he paid the coeds was taken away from her.  Amy would sing her upbeat songs from the previous decade to boost her spirits.  “Smile a Little Smile For Me” was a song that Amy frequently sang in an attempt to make the girl happy again.

Remembering the song helped Jasmine remember the lessons.  Sometimes things  _ weren’t _ what they looked like on the outside.  Maybe what she had seen in the lobby of the hotel really wasn’t what she thought.  After all, men and women talk all the time, and as Amy had tried to tell her several times, most people weren't like her parents.  Steve had given her no indication that he was anything like Carl.  

She decided to give Steve the benefit.  Instead of being scared or mad at him, she'd treat him how she always had.  What she wouldn't do was let him leave the hotel room to meet with the woman in the dark dress.  She may not have had any sway with her real parents, but she had a good feeling that she had plenty of pull with Steve and could make him cater to her wishes.

After arriving at their room, Steve said a cold good night to Mike and Jeannie and pushed Jasmine through the door.  He flipped on a lamp and switched on the television before plopping down on his bed.  Part of him wanted to just close his eyes and forget this weird day had ever happened.

Jasmine put her small suitcase on her bed and opened it, pulling out several pieces of paper and a box of crayons.

"What's all that?" Steve asked, curious about the colorful paper pile.

"Drawings.  A couple of the shrinks told me it would be good to draw my feelings.  They said it would make me feel better."

"Did it?"

She shrugged.  "Sometimes I guess.  It did bring my family back...well, I thought it did."

Steve looked at her curiously but didn't ask what she meant by that.  Instead he asked if he could see her work.

She agreed and handed him the pile.

He took it from her and started slowly flipping through the pages.  They looked like the works of a manic-depressive, alternating between happy family scenes of her, Steve, and Amy to dark worlds of loneliness and anger. 

A common theme was a princess in a pink dress and gold crown being saved by a man in a cape.  Sometimes the princess was blonde and sometimes brunette.

"Who's the princess?  You?" Steve asked.

"Sometimes.  Sometimes it's Mommy.  You're the guy in the cape."

"Looks like I save you two a lot."

"Sometimes," was all she said.  She hopped off her bed and began flipping through the pile Steve was holding.  Pulling out a couple papers, she shoved them at Steve and said, "You didn't here."

He glimpsed at the scenes she pointed out.  In one, the man in the cape was run over by a car as was the dark-haired princess.  The driver had the words "Ant Bee" written over her head.  In another, the blonde princess was being carried off by a monster.  The man in the cape had been tied to a tree.  In the last drawing, both princesses had drown in a pool in Sea Cliff.  The man in the cape was nowhere to be found.

“What made you draw these?” he asked, both a bit worried about her mental state and annoyed that she would look at the situation so darkly.

Instead of answering, Jasmine asked, "Daddy, why don't we draw together?  You can draw your feelings too."  She sat on the edge of the bed and leaned over the nightstand that stood between the two beds, beginning on another picture.

He didn't say a word.  He just sighed and looked back down at the pile of pictures.  He didn’t want to risk her clamming up and never answering his question.  Instead, he nearly did.  The bottom of the pile was much darker than anything he had seen before.  Gone were the sunshine, rainbows, and smiling faces.  Dark clouds, monsters, and people with x's for eyes took over.

"Are these people all dead?" he asked.

"Mmm hmm," she mumbled without looking up.

"Why are there so many of them?"  Steve was becoming a bit scared of his own child.

"Because people die all the time.  And some need to.  That's the only way to stop their evil plans."

Steve hadn't even heard something like that out of hardened criminals with no remorse.  The thought that it came out of the mouth of a six year old sent a chill throughout his body.

"Who are these dead people?" he asked, pointing to one picture in particular that had a man and a woman lying on the floor of an entryway that looked suspiciously like the one in the Duncan's mansion.

Jasmine looked up.  "My first parents," she answered, looking down again.  "I drew that because my dad is dead...and I wish my mom was."

"So her evil would end?" Steve asked cautiously.

"Yep."

"Do you still feel that way even though she's in jail?"

She looked up at him and said in no uncertain terms, "Bad guys always come back unless you kill them."

Steve was starting to think her seemingly innocent hobby of reading comic books was warping her sense of reality.  He put that one to the side and glanced at another.  This one had a bunch of dead women, all with long, yellow hair.  A few seemed to be lying in pools of blood.

"Who are all these girls?  And why are they bleeding so much?"

"Dad's girlfriends.”  Jasmine putting a snotty intonation on the word girlfriend.  "They’re bleeding because...it hurts when you bleed, and they deserve to hurt.  Amy had no idea how many there were.  She didn't see most of them."

Steve took a deep breath.  "They were all blondes?"

She nodded.  "I hate blondes."

Steve glanced over at her.  "You're blonde."

"Mmm hmm.  And he didn't like me just like he didn't like them.  He used them and threw them away like trash."

"Did you hear someone say that?"  Even though Jasmine was smart, he couldn't fathom a six year old understanding any of that.

"Bad mom."

"Well...no more blonde girlfriends for you to worry about.  And no more drawings of dead people, okay?"  He grabbed some of the happy pictures from the bed.  “I want more of these to hang on the fridge.”

"Sure, Daddy, no more blondes," Jasmine said skeptically.

Steve looked at her sideways.  "What's on your mind?  You've been quiet ever since we got to Omaha.  That's not like you."

She forcefully pushed a blank piece of paper at him.  “Stay here and draw with me.”

He sat up.  The phrase “stay here” seemed very out of place.  Before he could answer, the phone next to him rang.

Assuming it was Mike or Jeannie, Jasmine quickly grabbed it before Steve could.  “Hello?” she asked sweetly.

“Um...I must have the wrong room.  Is this room 225?”

“Yes,” Jasmine replied politely.  She remembered seeing that number on the door.

“Oh,” the person replied, surprised.  “I was looking for Steven Keller.”

Jasmine’s eyes narrowed.  She knew who this confused caller was.  “I don’t know who that is,” she replied before slamming the phone down.

Steve looked at his daughter in disbelief.  “Jasmine!  Why did you do that?”

“It was a wrong number, Daddy.  Please stay here and color with me!”

The phone rang again.  “Wrong number, huh?”

He went to grab the receiver, but she slammed her hand down on it and tried to make it hard to lift off the cradle.

“Jasmine Duncan, what has gotten into you?!”  Steve easily lifted her hand off the phone and answered.

“Steve?” Kathryn asked.

“Kathryn?  Did you just try calling here?”

“Yeah.  I got a little girl I think.”

Steve chuckled.  “Yeah, sorry about that.”  He cleared his throat.  “I didn’t expect to hear from you.”

“I got back after dinner and thought a drink sounded good.  I thought I’d see if you’d like to join me in the lounge.”

“Well…”  As he looked at the gloomy drawings spread across the bed and over at Jasmine, who was angrily scribbling over the top of a paper with a black crayon, he thought about Mike’s attitude toward him and Kathryn.  Part of him knew he should just stay in the room with Jasmine and get some sleep with hopes that tomorrow would bring good news, but another part of him really wanted to prove Mike wrong.

“You know, I could really use a drink.  This has been...a day.  Why don’t I come pick you up in five minutes?”

“Sounds great!  I’ll be waiting.”

Steve hung up the phone then picked it right back up.  He called Jeannie and asked if she’d come over and watch Jasmine for about half an hour.  She was skeptical of the reason but knew if she asked in her father’s presence, he’d be very upset.  Instead, she agreed and told Mike that Jasmine wanted her to come over and play a bit before bed.

After hanging up the phone, Steve rose to his feet and buttoned up his shirt.

“Daddy...sit down,” Jasmine whimpered.

Steve slowly turned around.  “Excuse me?”

She ran over and grabbed onto his leg.  “Don’t leave!  Don’t go see that stupid blonde!”

He looked down at her.  “What are you talking about?”

She let go of his leg and glared up at him.  “You’re leaving me to go see that ugly bitch you were talking to downstairs!  You’re supposed to be out looking for Mommy, but instead you’re going out to screw around with her!”

His knee-jerk reaction was to slap her, but his cop instinct of not giving in to knee jerk reactions fortunately kicked in.  Deep down, he knew she wasn’t saying this.  Half of what came out of her mouth was from living with a couple who tried destroying each other, but it didn’t ease his anger much.  

“Don’t you ever talk like that again, you hear me?” he barked.  “I think it’s time you went to sleep.”

“You’re still going, aren’t you?” she cried.

“I’m pretty sure I can leave this room if I want to.  Now get in that bed.”

She climbed on top of the mattress so that she was at eye level with Steve.  “You’re a jerk!  I thought you were a good guy, but you’re nothing but a villain!  You’re just like my old dad!  You don’t love Amy and you don’t love me!  You’re a jerk!”

Cop instinct failed him, and he slapped Jasmine across the face.  She immediately started bawling and fell onto the bed in a ball.

“Steve Keller!” Jeannie admonished as she stood at the doorway.

He hadn’t even heard her come in, and now he was too shaken to say anything.  Turning around, he hurried past Jeannie and left the room.


	33. Chapter 33

**_Saturday, May 25, 1974_ **

“You look like something is bothering you quite a bit,” Kathryn said as she and Steve stepped off the elevator and into the lobby.  The whole way down he kept wringing his hands or running them through his hair.

“I just...I have a lot on my mind right now.  It’s been a bad month.”

The two walked into the dimly-lit lounge and chose to take seats at the bar.  Before sitting down, Kathryn took a quick scan of the room but in the darkness could not tell if she was alone or not.  She shrugged, turned back around, and ordered a white wine spritzer.

Steve let out a chuckle.  

“What?  I know it’s not a Rum & Coke, but…”

He shook his head.  “Just a memory...in a very odd place.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“My girlfriend ordered the same thing on our first date, that’s all.”

Kathryn mouthed the word oh.  “So you’re seeing someone?”  She did little to hide her disappointment.

Steve nodded.  “Holloway didn’t tell you?”

Kathryn tried acting like she had no idea what or who he was speaking of, but the look he gave her told her to drop the act.

“Honestly, I had no idea why he even came to talk to me.  He was quite vague.  Why was he asking about something that happened two years ago?”

The bartender set their drinks in front of them and Steve pulled some bills out of his wallet, throwing them on the bar.

“He was trying to get me kicked off the force for dating Amy.”  He took a big drink of his highball.

“What?  That doesn’t make any sense.”

“She was involved in one of my cases.  She was just a victim, but to Holloway, that was no different than if she had been a suspect.”

“Ohhh,” Kathryn answered knowingly.  “I see.  He tried to make a similar connection to you and...me.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry.  If I had known that, I wouldn't have said anything. Did anything happen?”

“Two week suspension, but not for that.”

“That’s good...isn’t it?  You don’t act like you’re too happy.”

“I’m just...I haven’t really been myself lately.  Hell, I just smacked my daughter.  I never thought I was the kind of guy who would do something like that!  What kind of man smacks a six year old across the face?  Sure, she was being a brat...but it’s not her fault.  I know it’s not her fault.  She’s just as stressed out as I am...and I’m not doing anything to help...except being the worst father in the world.  She deserves someone better.”  Down went another third of his drink.

Kathryn looked confused.  “You have a daughter...who’s six?  But when we were…”

Steve downed the last of his drink and signaled to the bartender that he wanted another.

“She’s my girlfriend’s daughter.  I just have her right now because...Amy is in the hospital.”

“Anything serious?” Kathryn asked, sounding sincerely concerned.

“Possibly.  Hard to tell right now.  Touch and go.”  Steve looked down at the bar.  He wasn’t sure why he didn’t just tell Kathryn the truth, but it didn’t feel right having her know.  Why he made it sound like Amy was dying though - that he couldn’t figure out either.

She patted him on the back.  “I’m very sorry.  No wonder you seem so forlorn.”  She moved on to letting her hand run up and down his back.

“It’ll be okay.  I have to be positive.”  He tensed up at first as Kathryn massaged his back, yet a woman’s touch felt comforting.  He just wished it was Amy’s touch instead. 

“So, your girl is back home sick, yet the department sent you out here on a case?  That’s awful.”

“Life doesn’t stop just because…”  Instead of finishing the sentence, he downed half of his second drink, after which he simply stared straight ahead.

"When I lost my grandmother several years ago, one thing many people told me was that if you talk about the good times, the pain lessens."

Steve looked over at her, agast.  "She's not dead yet!"  

"I know, I know.  I didn't mean she...well...just...if you tell me about her, maybe it will make you feel good.  It always worked for me."  She shrugged innocently but had a less-than-innocent reason for the suggestion.

Steve looked down at his drink, which he had both hands around.  A slight smile developed.  "I know Mike still thinks I'm nuts."

"Why?"

"Because not only did I fall in love with a woman the minute I saw her, but I fell in love with her daughter too.  Me, a dad."  He let out a self-deprecating chuckle.  “I’m proving to be as effective at it as I thought.”

"I have to admit that one shocked me.  You didn't seem like the settle down type, and kids are definitely settling down.  At least...you didn't want to settle down with me."

Steve looked over at her.  "People change, even guys like me."

Kathryn blushed in embarrassment.  "I didn't mean anything by it.  Two years can do a lot to a person.  I'm glad you've found someone who seems to make you very happy."

He nodded.  "She does."

From there, he went on to talk about every feeling he'd ever had for Amy and why he felt that way.  Kathryn wanted to ask Steve who he was trying to convince - himself or her.  Inside, she was seething with jealousy at the glowing way he talked about Amy, but she still absorbed every nugget of information she could about her.  There had to be something she could use.

He looked at his watch.  "I'm sorry.  I didn't mean to hog the entire conversation.  Tell me how you've been."

Holloway wanted to catch him in a compromising situation; she wanted to put him in one for the rest of his days, and now was her opportunity to draw Steve's attention away from some dying woman with a kid and onto a vivacious creature like herself.  She was healthy and unattached; she also had the familiarity of their past on her side.  It may not have lasted long, but it was magical.  She always felt like the only reason Steve left was because he had a fear of commitment.  If he was willing to take care of a child who wasn't his, then he was now ready to settle down.  He just needed a reminder of to whom he should commit.  

In telling Steve about her life, she decided to make the time between their breakup and now seem like she was just a lone boat lost at sea - no one to turn to and no way to get back to land.  Sure, she had made some progress in her quest to move on from her brother’s callous acts, but with no one at her side, it was tough.  She recalled the many sleepless, nightmare-filled nights, the embarrassment she felt around her family, and how she felt responsible for everything.  Life may have taken a few small steps forward, but it wasn’t nearly enough to make up for the many huge steps back.

She smiled a sly grin and took a sip of her wine.  The sympathy in Steve’s eyes was unmistakable.  Her words had played all the right heartstrings.  

“I am really sorry,” he said, reaching out and placing his left hand on top of her right and giving it a slight squeeze.  “It’s terrible when you can’t even count on your own family to keep you safe.  They should be there for you through thick and thin, yet they’re the ones who caused you all the grief.”

“Thank you for understanding.  Few people do.”

The sympathy Steve showed may have been unmistakable, but what Kathryn did mistake was who the sympathy was actually for.  Steve wasn’t saddened by her tales of woe; he was depressed over the fact that to him, it mirrored Amy’s plight.  She could be up all night, fearing sleep because it brought on images of being held in a dingy basement in south San Francisco or wherever her mother was holding her now.  She could easily withdraw from Karen and her side of the family because of all the pain Margaret caused.  He already knew how guilty she felt.  At that moment, in a lounge in downtown Omaha, three drinks into the night, Steve just wanted to wrap Amy in a tight embrace and never let go.  But all he had was Kathryn, and she was an inferior imitation.

Kathryn scooted up in her stool to get closer to Steve.  “You know, ever since Sergeant Holloway came to speak with me, you’ve been on my mind.  You’re the only guy I’ve ever really been able to be myself around.  I feel like I have to put up some sort of front with everyone else...but with you...you knew all my weaknesses, and you loved me anyway.  You know how special that is?  I mean, I was a complete mess during my brother’s trial, but you would smile at me...hold my hand…”

She got uncomfortably close to his face.  “Give me a hug...kiss me…”  Not only did she say it, but she also did it.  She lightly laid her lips on his at first to gauge his reaction.  When he didn’t immediately pull away, she went in more sensually, spreading her lips and letting her tongue brush over his.

It felt like an umbrella in the rain.  You’re relieved that you’re no longer getting wet, but you’re still cold.  He’d been longing for intimacy like this for almost a month and on the surface, it was great...but an umbrella and a coat would have been better.  Amy’s kisses were an umbrella, a coat, a fireplace, and a hot cup of coffee all in one.  Kathryn’s felt more like a holey umbrella and cold coffee.

Realizing that he wasn’t getting what he really wanted, he quickly pushed her away and stood up.

“I am...very sorry.  But this never happened, okay?”  He gulped the last bit of his drink, swished it around in his mouth to eliminate her taste, and headed for the door.  

She jumped up and went after him.  “Wait, Steve, why are you leaving?”

He made it to the entrance of the lounge and turned around.  “I...I miss Amy...a lot.  You’re not her, but I wished you were.”

He went to turn back around, but Kathryn grabbed his arm.  “You’re right, I’m not her - I’m better!  Don’t you remember the dates we had...the way we used to tease each other...how we’d hold each other for hours…”

She put her arms around his waist and cuddled up real close to him in the hopes that the feel of her body next to his would change his mind.  “...making love until the sun came up…”

Steve wiggled out of her grasp.  “But that’s not what it was.  I wasn’t in love with you,” he told her point blank.

“I know you weren’t ready for a committment back then, but you clearly are now!  We have a history together!  You’ve only known Amy for a week!  How can you already be in love with her?”

Steve glared at her.  “A week?  How did you know that?”

She stumbled over some inarticulate utterances.

“Guess Holloway wasn’t so vague after all, was he?”  He turned on his heel and made his way toward the elevators.

“Steve, wait!”  She ran off after him, barely squeezing into the car before the doors closed.  “Be honest...there’s still something between us, Steve!  All we have to do is respark the flame!”

“Why don’t you just grovel at my feet, Kathryn?  Now I remember why it didn’t work out between us.  Besides the fact that I didn’t love you, you were much too clingy.”

“And Amy isn’t?!  She sounds like a complete mess!  What do you want with a woman like that?”

Steve started to laugh.  “You just sat down there going on and on about how you weren’t exactly put together yourself.  Stop being a hypocrite.”

“Who would you rather put back together, me or her?  She’s beyond repair!  Be with me, Steve!  I need you!  She can find another cop to saddle with a kid and a lifetime of emotional baggage!”

Going two for two on the night, Steve lost control and slapped Kathryn across the face.  “Don’t you dare talk about her.  If I want to stick around and put that puzzle back together, then I will.”

They arrived at the second floor, and the doors opened.  Steve stepped off the elevator, but turned around to face a stunned Kathryn.  Putting his hands on the doors to keep them from closing, he looked at the woman and said, “You tell your pal Sergeant Holloway that if he wants me so bad, he should come get me himself.”

He took his hands off the doors and they began to close.  Before they did, Steve snuck in, “And if you want a cop to put you back together...he’s a good candidate.”


	34. Chapter 34

**_Saturday, May 25, 1974_ **

He stood at his hotel room door, waiting.  What awaited him on the other side was not going to be pleasant, but he couldn’t stay in the hall all night either.  He took a deep breath, turned the door handle, and slowly walked into the room.

It was mostly dark except for a lamp in the far corner of the room by the window.  The only sound was from the air conditioning unit running on low.  He crept in and found Jeannie sitting at the table by the window.  She was coloring something while Jasmine was fast asleep in her bed.

Jeannie looked up at Steve and then down at her watch.  “I expected you to be longer,” she said quietly.

“I didn’t expect what I got either,” he grumbled as he looked over at the sleeping six year old.  In the dim light, he could see why his calling her “Princess” came so easily.  A few strands of blonde hair fell gently over her face, and she had her hands clasped together and resting just below her chin as she lay on her left side.  

“Did she fall asleep quickly?” he asked Jeannie.

“Very.”  She put her crayon down and stood up, walking toward Steve.  “Let’s go talk in here,” she told him as she pointed toward the bathroom.

He followed her in, taking a seat on the edge of the tub.  

She stood for a moment as her eyes adjusted to the bright light.  When she could finally see, she looked over at her friend and noticed something she would have rather not seen.  “Oh, really, Steve?!  First you hit Jasmine and then you go cheating on Amy?  I get grief, really I do, but this is ridiculous!  I should slap you back!"  Her words came out hoarsely as she tried to shout and be quiet at the same time.

"Cheat...what the hell are you talking about?"

"The smeared lipstick on your face!"

He bolted upright and looked in the mirror.  Sure enough, Kathryn had left a little of herself behind.  He quickly grabbed a tissue and wiped the remnants away.

"It's not what it looks like."

"It looks like you kissed that woman!" Jeannie informed him.  "Unless you've turned to cross-dressing, in which case you should have come to me for makeup advice."

They stared at each other via the mirror.  After a few seconds of tense silence, they both began to laugh.

"Cross-dressing?  Really?" Steve said.

“Why else would a guy wear lipstick?” she asked after she had quit giggling.

“Yeah, well...it’s still not what it looks like.  She kissed me; I didn’t kiss her."  He tossed the tissue in the trash and sat back down on the edge of the tub.

“How does that work out exactly?” Jeannie asked, staying standing in front of the sink.  "I always thought of that as a team sport."

"Someone can put their lips on yours without you...you...you know..."

"Alright, alright.  You don't need to paint me a picture."  She sighed and took a seat next to Steve.  "What is going on with you, Steve?  I'm really worried about you!  Mike is worried about you!  You haven't been yourself in so long...and tonight...that wasn't the Steve Keller I know.  Where is he?"

Steve leaned over and rested his elbows on his thighs, placing his face in his hands.  "I think I'm losing my mind, Jeannie.  One minute I'm fine, and then next...apparently I have triggers just like Jasmine."

He turned his head and looked at his friend.  "I'm trying so hard to believe that Amy is out there and that she's fine, but...and Jasmine is struggling so much without her here.  I can't seem to help her.  She even drew me not saving her or Amy, so she knows how worthless I am."

"She doesn't believe that.  That's just her anxiety talking.  She's just scared of losing the little she thinks she has left in the world.  Amy, the only person she could trust for years, is missing.  We may be able to put a positive spin on that and know she could very well be alive, but she can't.  She saw your reaction to her stress as abandonment - the same kind of abandonment she got with her parents.  So she lashed out.  Even an adult would be confused and stressed if they'd been through everything she's been through lately."

"I'm sure she hates me now. Why'd I smack her?  I'm not that kind of man!  At least I didn't think I was."

"Well, it certainly wasn't your finest moment.  You both just hit your breaking point.  You're human, and you make mistakes.  I explained to her that when people get really scared or have a lot of things weighing on their minds, they melt down.  She realizes that's what she did, and that it's also what made you smack her.  Sure, she was mad at first, told me she hated you, but she's a smart girl.  She understands emotions better than most kids - she's had to."  

She paused before adding, "I saw some of those drawings when I met her in Phoenix, and I have to admit they frightened me too.  The fact that a child has that much anger inside her..."

"I should have tried to understand instead of running.  But the sight of Amy being dead...because of me...and that this little girl whom I thought had faith in me didn't..."

"She never lost faith in you.  We talked about how you and Mike are trying to find Amy.  I explained that these things take time, and that we can't always talk to people we need to right away.  She seemed to understand that you're following clues, and those take time to follow as well."

Jeannie placed her hand gently on Steve's leg.  "Trust me...you're still her hero...Daddy."  She smiled a gentle smile.

Steve smiled back and thanked her for being there for Jasmine.

"We just need to work on your faith," she told him.

"My faith in what?" he asked.

"Technically, everything.  But specifically your partner."

"Mike?  I trust Mike."

"You're not completely convinced that we're on the right track here, are you?"

Steve sat up, turned slightly, and leaned against the wall to face Jeannie.  "Evidence-wise...no.  There just isn't any.  Going on a hunch doesn't instill a lot of faith in me."

"But it's not just a hunch, Steve!  Mike and Lenny have spent many an hour, sitting at our kitchen table, getting into Margaret's head and trying to think like her.  I joined them for a bit because I found it all kind of fascinating, and I gotta tell ya...they know this woman.  They just need people here to fill in blanks."

"They did all this behind my back?"

"You wouldn't have been much help, Mr. Skeptic."

Steve chuckled.  "True."

Jeannie stood up.  "By tomorrow at this time, I bet we'll be talking with Amy."

Steve also stood.  "Really?  That seems like a stretch."

Jeannie nodded and turned the door knob.  Quietly, the two stepped out of the bathroom.  They heard sheets rustling.

"Restless sleep," Jeannie whispered before slowly turning the handle on the door and opening it, letting the hallway light spill in.

She stepped into the hall and turned to face Steve.  "You should try to sleep too.  Tomorrow might be a long day."

Steve nodded slightly and again thanked Jeannie for her help...and not killing him.

She smiled.  "Just don't try it again.  I may not be so forgiving next time."  She turned to walk toward her room.

"You're not even going to ask me what happened?"

She stopped walking and turned back toward Steve.  "Do I want to know?"

"I think I'm being set up."

"You're what?  That's not just some lame excuse to get out of..."

Steve shook his head.  "Just have some faith in me."  He smiled, winked at her playfully, and closed the door.

He faced the dimly-lit room once more, only this time he was left to his thoughts.  His mind was working overtime trying to figure out what had gone on with Kathryn.  Mike was right - she wasn't here for a convention and it wasn't just a coincidence that they'd run into her in the lobby.  She had a clear goal, but why couldn't she have tried to seduce him in San Francisco?  Why come all the way to Omaha?  And how did she even know he'd be here?  

He didn't think anyone knew where they were going except for Captain Olsen and Sergeant Drake.  Neither of them would have told her, at least Steve didn't think so.  Who else knew...Holloway?  But how would he have found out?

Steve was coming up with more questions than answers, so he decided to give up and go to bed.  The whole night had been nothing but a nightmare he was going to have trouble dealing with.  He had hurt his child, walked into a trap, and the worst in his eyes - betrayed Amy's trust.  He didn't feel like he could even face her when he did find her.  As he grabbed some clothes to sleep in, he was just glad Jasmine was asleep so that he didn't have to face her either.

* * *

Jasmine, among her many other sneaky talents, had become rather adept at fake sleeping.  It was a skill she acquired so that her parents would leave her alone.  Tonight, she wasn't sleeping partially because she was too wound up, but also because she wanted to be awake when Steve came back to the room.  She too did not want to face him but still wanted to know what had happened.

When Jeannie and Steve went into the bathroom, Jasmine got up and listened at the closed door.  She heard how bad Steve felt, and that Jeannie had been right about his stress.  The conversation made her feel terrible for getting mad and yelling at Steve, and she sat on the floor silently crying as the two adults talked.  When she heard Jeannie reach for the doorknob, she rushed back to bed and buried her head in the pillow so that no one heard her sobs.

She lay that way as Steve changed his clothes, turned off the lamp, and got into bed.  The two lay in the dead of the night listening to the air conditioning fan click on and off.  During one of its off periods, Jasmine heard something familiar - tears.  They weren't hers though.  Steve was trying hard not to cry, but the weight of everything that had happened that night got the best of him, and he let go with a pillow on his face.

As contagious as laughter is, crying is twice as bad when you’ve been crying yourself.  Steve’s tears made Jasmine’s tears begin again.  Tired of crying alone, she sat up to go comfort her father.  Then she got another idea.  She dug into her mental catalog of all the songs Amy had sung her over the past three years to cheer her up.  Amy had sung everything from goofy tunes to songs about how bad life could be, but Jasmine decided to go with a third option.

In her own little six year old with a weak singing voice way, Jasmine started singing “I Got You Babe.”  

Steve threw the pillow off his face and sat up, reaching over to turn on the table lamp between the beds.  “What are you doing?” he asked, exasperated.

She looked over at him.  “Filling in for Amy.”  She then continued with the first verse.  When she got to the chorus, she stopped.  “I usually don’t sing that part - she does.  And then we sing the ‘I Got You Babe’ part together.  Then I sing the next words.”

Steve rubbed his face to get rid of the tears.  “You and Amy sing ‘I Got You Babe’?  Why?”

“She sings to me to cheer me up and make me stop crying.  She sings all sorts of songs.”

Steve smiled and let out a small chuckle.  “‘I Got You Babe’, huh?  Why that particular song?”

Jasmine shrugged.  “Cuz even though my family didn’t like me, Amy did.  She was the only one who tried to make me happy...the only one who cared...she got me...Babe.”  She giggled.

Steve's smile faded.  “I got you too...you know that, right?” he asked quietly.  “I know it probably didn’t seem that way tonight…”

“I know,” she interrupted.  “Jeannie told me that you’re just upset that Amy isn’t here, and that when she’s here, everything will be okay.”  She looked down at her lap.  “She said we both got mad because we’re scared.”

“But I shouldn’t have smacked you.  I should have never let my temper get that bad.”

She shrugged.  “I’ve been smacked before.”

“And it makes me mad that you were!  No one should hit a child!"  Tears began escaping from his eyes.  

"But I was being a brat..."

"So?  Parents don't hit their kids, no matter what they do."  He looked her right in the eyes and said, "I am so sorry."  He then fell back on the bed and covered his face with his hands.

Jasmine got out of her bed and crawled onto Steve's.  She sat next to him and asked, "Do you still love Amy?"

Steve took his hands away from his face.  Jasmine already knew he was crying, so there was no need to hide.  

"Of course I do."

"You don't love the blonde woman?"

He reached over and grabbed her hand.  "I don't even like her."

Jasmine leaned over and laid her head on Steve's stomach, facing him.  "I'm sorry I yelled at you.  I..."

Steve stroked her hair.  "Don't apologize, okay?  Just believe me when I tell you that I won't leave you or Amy.  And we'll find her very soon.  Eventually...everything will be normal again, I promise."

"Okay, Daddy."

The two lay for a moment, neither saying a word, until Jasmine started singing, "I Got You Babe" again.  When she got to the chorus, she told him to sing along.  Not wanting to disappoint her, he joined in.  She even got him to go solo.

He snickered.  "I can't believe Mommy sings that to you."

"Did it make you feel better?" she asked.

"Yeah, a little."


	35. Chapter 35

**_Saturday, May 25, 1974_ **

Kathryn wandered back into the lounge in a sweatshirt and jeans.  Looking around, she finally saw Mark sitting at the bar where she and Steve had been sitting.  She stormed over to him and plopped down on the stool to his left.

He turned to see who had just joined him.  “There you are!  I thought maybe you decided you didn’t want your money.  Well-earned, by the way.”  He got into his jacket and pulled out a white envelope, which he promptly handed Kathryn.

She grabbed the envelope with one hand and slapped a wire on the bar with the other.  "Hope our conversation was worth it," she barked.

"And then some, I'm sure.  The pictures I got were gold.  Like I said, good job."

Letting out a disgusted sigh, she stood up, but Mark stopped her from leaving.

"You really thought you were going to steal Keller away, didn’t you?”

“From that sad sack, average-looking bimbo?  Yeah!”

He mouthed the words  _ average-looking bimbo _ , trying to make sense of the juxtaposition.  Most of the bimbos he had ever seen were far from average-looking.  “I’m not sure bimbo is the right word to use here…”

“That little bitch, wherever she is, must have some sort of spell over him!  What else would make a man like Steven Keller fall for some shlump with a kid?  Huh?  Voodoo!”

Mark stared at her, speechless.  “Magic?  Voodoo?  Are you serious?”

Kathryn sat back down.  “How well do you even know Steve?”

Mark partially shrugged.  “Not...well.”

“He’s like, a...white hot flame that no one dares cool.”  She let out a soft moan.  “He’s a flame that needs another just like it to survive.”

“And you don’t think Amy is a hot enough flame...but you are?” he asked.

“Now you get it!  The woman is water!  He’s drowning!  She took the Prince Charming out of him and now he's more like...Prince Boring!  She's turned him into a dull family man!"

"Heaven forbid," Mark muttered under his breath.  "If she's ruined him, why do you still want him?  I'm sure there's some other white flame out there...one who's not so easily swayed by voodoo."

"He’s not too far gone.  I can change him back to the man he used to be.”  

Mark let out a laugh.  “You wish.  All women think that, but very few get it done.”  He chuckled some more.

“I will.  You’ll see!”  She looked off at nothing, lost in her own fantasy world.  

“He's the only man who ever got me.  He understood the hell I was living through.  He was kind and generous...and the se..."

"Okay!" Mark quickly interrupted.  "I get the picture!"  He took a very big drink of his scotch.  He was not interested in Steve's extracurricular activities, and he certainly did not care to hear how great he was at anything else.  “It’s still not gonna matter.  He seems pretty done with you...and not done with Amy at all.”

“Pssh...it’s just a fling,” she grumbled.

Mark shook his head.  “No, men don’t talk about women they don’t love like Steve talks about Amy.”

“Steve used to talk about me like that!” she insisted.

“I doubt that very much,” he told her, almost laughing at her attitude.

“You’re thinking of your own pathetic love life,” she snarked.

Mark glared at her.  “You got your money; feel free to leave any time you like.”  He picked up his drink and finished it off.

He stood up like he was about to leave, but Kathryn stopped him.  “Wait a sec.  I have an idea.”

Curiosity killed the cat, and Mark was unsure it wouldn’t also kill him, but he chose to stay and find out what was on her mind.

“You seem to like this woman.”

“Who, Amy?”

Kathryn nodded.  

“I don’t even know her!  I only saw one picture of her, and it wasn’t exactly flattering.”

“Okay...so you feel sorry for her or something then?”

“Maybe...why are you asking?”

“Well…” she started, playing with Mark’s shirt collar, “if someone else would just happen to catch her eye...someone who’s also a cop...handsome enough…”  

“Oh Hell No!” he exclaimed.  “Not even for sweet charity am I going to steal Keller’s girlfriend just so you can steal him!  I want to keep my job, thank you very much.”

“Hey, you owe me!”

Mark gave her a shocked look.  “I owe you?  For what?”

“Tonight!  I flew all the way out here to no man’s land to help you pull this off.  I didn’t have to do that!”

He tapped the envelope that was sitting on the bar.  “And you got paid for it.  Quite handsomely I might add.  I don’t owe you anything.  Like I said, feel free to head back to California any time.  Sooner rather than later preferably.”

“Hey, what I did was worth more than a thousand dollars!  Pleeeeeease!  We’ll both come out winners in this!  You’ll have a woman...I’ll have my man back…”

Mark looked her straight in the eyes and said, “No.  Not now, not ever.  Even I have lines I won’t cross.  You want help?  Take it up with Holloway.  I have a feeling you’d be just the girl for him.  Now if you’ll excuse me…”

Kathryn became very angry.  “I’m gonna tell him what a prick you are.  You’ll be in such trouble.”

“Yeah, he’ll even put me in a time out, and I won’t get to go out to recess.  Boo hoo.  You two are made for each other.  He turns into a whiny brat when he doesn’t get his way either.”

She chuckled and began walking away.  “I’m telling him you said that!”  She stormed off toward the door.

“Go ahead!” he shouted after her.  “Like he’ll believe you over me,” he then muttered to himself.  He then paused, wondering if that was true or not.  Shaking off the thought as though it really didn’t matter anyway, he ordered another drink and put the wire in his inside jacket pocket.

“Seems your girl doesn’t know a good thing when she sees it,” a sexy female voice said.

Mark quickly turned to his left and saw a small woman with strawberry blonde hair.  She was wearing a tight, low-cut emerald green dress that highlighted her eyes.  

“Um…” he laughed nervously.  “Her, yeah...she’s not my girl.  She belongs to a friend of mine.”

“Your friend has terrible taste.  Mind if I sit?  You look like you could use some company.”  She smiled sweetly at him.

He nodded enthusiastically.  She sat down on the stool.  Mark asked if she wanted a drink then ordered one for her and another for himself.  He turned to look at his new companion and smiled.  She was stunning.

The two sat for a hour just talking about his occupation - ace homicide detective - and what she did for a living - frustrated kindergarten teacher.  She was in town looking for a little adult fun, and Mark made it known that he was more than willing to help her find some.  After several drinks, she invited him up to her room.

He sat down at the table by the window, and she began to dig through her suitcase.  

“You look like a guy who likes a challenge.”

He rubbed his eyes and shook his head.  It felt fuzzy and his eyelids felt heavy.  He began to wonder if that sixth drink was too much.  “A challenge, huh?  Depends I guess.”

“Well, I have a friend who’s a bit of an alcohol connoisseur, and he created this drink that he swears relaxes you like nothing else.  Seeing as you need some relaxation...wanna try?”

Mark chuckled.  “This case  _ has _ gotten me kinda stressed.”

“I can tell.  I think one night of relaxation would do you some good.”

“I agree.”  He watched her as she took a glass bottle out of her suitcase.  The bottle was filled with a light brown liquor akin to whisky or scotch.  She grabbed some glasses from the bathroom and poured the drinks at the table.

“Cheers,” she said, holding up her glass.  They clinked their glasses together and took a drink.  Mark didn’t notice that she only pretended to drink hers.  She put the glass to her lips and got the liquid within a millimeter of her mouth before straightening the glass again and putting it down on the table.  It looked convincing, especially to a man who was already three sheets to the wind.

“So, tell me about the case you’re on.  I mean, it’s so stressful, so it has to be pretty interesting.”  She smiled another sweet smile at him.

He smiled back at her.  “Aww...I don’t think I should say much.”

She reached out and put her hand on top of his, giving it a gentle massage.  “But it will do you good.  Holding all that in will just make you snap someday.  Besides, who would I tell?  I talk to five year olds all day.”

He took her hand in his.  “You sure are pretty.”  His grin turned more into a lear.

“Thanks.  You’re pretty handsome yourself.  But the stress will make your hair go gray and give you wrinkles.  Get it out, Baby.  Keep that handsome face a few years longer.”

“You promise you won’t say anything?”

She nodded and crossed her heart with her right index finger.  

“Well...see, it’s not really a homicide case.  It’s more an IA undercover operation.”

“IA?”

“Internal Affairs.  You know, the guys who bust dirty cops.”

“So you’re after a dirty cop?  Wow!  How noble of you!”

Mark smiled.  “It is, isn’t it?  Yeah, this guy, he’s dating a woman who was part of a homicide.  Or something.  Actually, she wasn’t really, but my partner wants him to go down for it anyway.”

“Why would he want that?  Did this cop do anything else?”

Mark shook his head.  “Nah, I don’t think so.  But good ol’ Sergeant Holloway - that’s my partner - he hates that they were dating for some reason.  I don’t really get it.”

“If you don’t think this guy...what’s his name?”

“Keller.  Steve Keller.”  He took another drink.

“If all Steve did was date a woman, and you don’t think it was wrong, then why are you helping this Sergeant Holloway?”

“Cuz I want Keller’s job!  He’s the damn golden boy of the department!  Everyone loves him...thinks he’s just so fucking perfect!  Well you know what?  He’s not!  He almost got himself and his girl killed because he acted like a damn hot shot going into a hostage situation alone.  Okay, so he got in trouble for it, but he’ll still be on that damn pedestal.  I should be on that pedestal!  I follow the rules!  I come from a whole family of cops!  Does he?  No!”

She nodded.  “I’m sure you’re very good!”

“I am!  Holloway promised me if I helped him get rid of Keller, I’d get his job.  I deserve it, dammit.”  He downed the rest of his drink.  His companion quickly poured him more.

“So how did you end up in Omaha?”

“Well, Keller’s here looking for his girl.  She was kidnapped or something and his partner thinks she’s here for some reason.  Holloway needs to get to her before Keller does so that he can get her to tell him the truth about their relationship.  So he sent me out here to find her first.”

“Did you?”

“Did I what?” he asked, his eyelids getting droopy.  He rested his head on his hand, which he had propped up on the table.

“Did you find her?”

“Nah.  They don’t know where she is either.  They’re gonna talk to some doctor tomorrow about something.  I dunno what.  I’m gonna start calling hospitals.  I mean, she was kidnapped from a hospital, so why wouldn’t she be in one here, ya know?  See, that’s the smart thing to do.  What Keller is doing is dumb, running all around town...I should have his job just because I’m smarter than him.”  He yawned.

“You are smart.  So is that all you’re here for, just to find this girl first?”

Mark shook his head.  “I was also...setting up Keller.”

“Setting him up?  How?  Why?”

“Holloway wants to try to get her to turn on Keller, but she ain’t gonna do that, not without persuasion.  So I gave him some.”

“What kind of persuasion?”

He fought to keep his eyes open.  “We had an old girlfriend come on to him.  I took pictures.  Looks like he’s cheating on her, ya know?”  He then laid his head down on the table.  “It’s so hot in here,” he muttered.

“Very impressive.  I know I’d be upset if I saw pictures of my boyfriend with another woman.”

“I’m...very smart.”  Mark then passed out, complete with falling out of his chair onto the floor.

Nina stood up and leaned down next to Mark.  She patted his cheek and got no response.  The combination of the alcohol and her concoction of drugs had rendered him unconscious and oblivious.  “Yeah, you’re real smart, tough guy.”

She rolled her eyes and started going through all his pockets.  She found a small camera with film still loaded and the wire Kathryn had given him.  She also grabbed his room key in case there was additional evidence there.

She threw all that in her suitcase, closed it up, and picked up the phone.  Dialing an outside line, she patiently waited for her desired party to answer.

Once they did, she happily announced, "Norm, Baby, it worked like a charm!"


	36. Chapter 36

**_Sunday, May 26, 1974_ **

Steve slowly opened his eyes.  It was no longer pitch black outside, but dawn was just breaking so light was minimal.  He looked over at the clock but couldn't tell what it said.  Looking at his watch, which he had to hold close to his face to see, he saw it was a few minutes after six.

He groaned and sat up.  Jasmine had ended up at the end of his bed, curled up in a ball.  He chuckled, pulled some of the comforter over her, and kissed her on the cheek before getting up.  His head was pounding, so his first order of business was to find some aspirin.  After leaving the bathroom, a very faint knock came at his door.

"Inspector Keller, are you awake?" a voice asked quietly.

He didn't recognize the voice, and he had no idea who would be calling at such an early hour, but he went to open the door anyway.  There stood Norm's girlfriend Nina, the private investigator.

"I hope I didn't wake you," she said.

Steve shook his head.  "No, a headache did.  What are you doing here?"

"Doing what I'm best at - digging up dirt."  She pulled a bag from behind her back and handed it to Steve.  

As he took it, he asked, "What's this?"

"Evidence.  Damning evidence.  Word to the wise, Inspector...be careful who you talk to.  Loose lips sink ships.  Now if you'll excuse me, my partner and I have been up all night developing photos, and I need my beauty sleep."

She turned and headed toward the elevator.  Before she got there, she turned around and said, "Good luck.  Oh, and room 207.  It's unlocked."

Steve shut the door and glanced in the bag.  There was a room key, a large clasp envelope, a couple cassette tapes, a cassette player, and some headphones inside.  Curious what all this damning evidence was, he walked over to the table and sat down to peruse the materials.  Jasmine was dead to the world, so he quietly took out the bag's contents and set them on the table.  

He first looked at the two cassette tapes.  One was marked  _ Steve and Kathryn Conversation _ .  The second was labeled  _ Mark and Nina Conversation _ .  Wondering if the Steve and Kathryn conversation was what he thought it was, he popped that tape into the player, plugged in the headphones, and played the tape.  Much to his dismay, it was.  

_ She was wearing a wire _ , he said to himself.

Since he had been a part of that discussion, he didn’t need to listen to any more of it, so he replaced that tape with the other one.  For the next hour, he listened to Mark brag about what a great detective he is, about how in no time he’ll be in charge of Homicide, and, the best part, how he and Holloway conspired to set up Steve and get Amy on their side.

“I knew it!” he shouted and banged the table.

Jasmine jumped, sat up, and looked worriedly at her father.

Steve cringed and stood up, walking over to the bed.  “Sorry, Baby.  I didn’t mean to wake you up.”  He kissed her on the forehead.

“Are you okay?” she mumbled, still half asleep.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.  Look, why don’t you get up and get dressed.  I need to go talk to Mike before we go, okay?”

She nodded slowly and yawned.  As she got out of bed, she asked, “Pancakes?”

“What about pancakes?”

“Can I have pancakes?”  She looked up at Steve with droopy eyes.

He chuckled.  “You’re half asleep, but you can still think about breakfast, huh?  We’ll see, okay?  Go get dressed.”

She wandered toward the bathroom but turned back and asked, “Will we see Mommy today?”

“Why do you ask?”

“If we do, I want to wear something pretty.  If we don’t, then I’ll just wear clothes.”

Steve looked down at the tired little girl and, at the risk of disappointing her even more than he already had, answered, “Wear something pretty.”

She smiled and waddled off into the bathroom.  Steve went back to the table and opened the envelope.  Inside were several pictures taken by Mark Stilwell of Steve and Kathryn talking - and kissing.  Below that were pictures that he assumed Nina took.  They were of Mark taking pictures of him.

When Jasmine came out of the bathroom, he quickly shoved the photos back in the envelope.  The last thing she needed to see after last night was her dad kissing another woman.

“You look very pretty,” he told her.

She looked down at her pink knit mini dress, which she had over a white turtleneck, a pair of white tights, and some white Mary Janes.  “Mommy bought this for me for my last birthday.”

“Then she’ll love seeing you in it.  You ready to go?”  He looked at his watch.  It was getting close to 7:30.

“Yeah, but you’re not.  You’re wearing the same clothes you had on yesterday!  Mommy won’t like you looking all wrinkly.”

He looked down and realized that he hadn’t changed his clothes since Los Angeles.  “Yeah, I probably should look nice for Mommy so she doesn’t laugh at me.”

Jasmine nodded and went to the closet where Steve had hung up all the clothes he’d brought.  She started sifting through them.

“What should I wear?” he asked her, finding it kind of cute that she was going to pick out an outfit for him.

After several seconds, she finally settled on a shirt and pant combination - solid dark blue button down shirt and a pair of brown slacks.  

“Mommy will like this, huh?”

“Yes.  She’ll think you look handsome.”  She smiled up at her dad.

“Thanks.  I need all the help I can get.”  

He quickly ran into the bathroom to change and run a comb through his hair.  Jasmine sat patiently on the edge of the bed, swinging her legs and thinking about pancakes. 

When Steve came out, he stopped in front of her to get her opinion.  After he got a thumbs up from his fashion consultant, he grabbed the bag and its contents, took Jasmine’s hand, and the two walked out of the room and into the hallway.  After he locked the door, the two started toward Mike and Jeannie’s room.  

They had only gone a few steps when Jasmine stopped and tugged anxiously on Steve’s hand.  “Daddy!”

He looked down at her, wondering what could possibly be wrong in the middle of an empty hallway.  

She pointed down the hall.  He looked up and noticed it wasn’t so empty after all.

“That’s the man from the airport!  He’s wearing the same thing he was yesterday too!"

The man, who appeared to be a bit unsteady on his feet, was slowly coming toward Steve and Jasmine.  When he got within a hundred feet, Steve instantly knew why he had been staring at Jasmine at the airport.  

Steve turned to Jasmine and let go of her hand.  He handed her the bag and told her, “I want you to go to Mike and Jeannie’s room with this and wait for me, okay?”

“But Daddy…”

“Just do what I ask, okay?”

She was worried, but she nodded and walked a couple feet to the Stone’s door, on which she promptly knocked.  

Steve walked by her and up to Mark Stilwell, who was having a difficult time coming around after being drugged.

“You look a little lost, Mark!  You must have made a wrong turn somewhere over the Rockies.”

Mark glanced up and saw Steve standing in front of him.  “Oh…” he muttered.  He then tried to turn around, but Steve grabbed him by the collar and shoved him against the wall.

“Where ya goin’?  Don’t you want to stick around, have a little chat with me?  I’d like to have a little chat with you!”  He looked down the hallway.  “Say, room 207 is down that way, isn’t it?  Is that where you were coming from?”  He chuckled.

“Look man, I don’t know what happened.  I just woke up in this room on the floor...where did you come from?” he asked Steve.

Jasmine came out of the room and pointed toward Steve and Mark.  “It’s the man from the airport!” she told Mike.

He was not expecting to see who he saw.

Steve, hearing the door open, turned and saw his partner looking at them.  “Look who I ran into, Mike!  Did you expect to see Inspector Stilwell in Omaha?  I sure didn’t!  I was just telling him that I think we should have a little talk.  I also have some very interesting things to show you.”

“I think this does call for an explanation,” Mike agreed.  “How ‘bout my room?”

Steve yanked Mark off the wall and shoved him in the direction of Mike’s room.  Mike then led him inside.

Steve took the bag from Jasmine and told Jeannie to take her back to their room, handing her the keys from his pocket.

“I wanna stay and watch!” Jasmine whined.

“They never let us watch,” Jeannie groaned.  “You’re gonna have to get used to it.  But I expect all the dirt later!”

“Fine, fine.  Just go,” Steve grumbled before entering Mike’s room and shutting the door.

Mike had Mark sit in a chair by the window.  He looked up at his protege.  “What is going on?”

Steve sighed and dumped the contents of the bag on a bed.  “Last night, when I called Jeannie over to have her play with Jasmine...well...that wasn’t the reason.  I wanted to go have a drink with Kathryn.”

Mike glared at Steve.  “You what?” he growled.  

“Trust me...nothing you can say will make me feel worse than I already do, especially thanks to him.”  He pointed at Mark, who had his head back and his eyes closed.

“You were right, Mike.  Kathryn wasn’t here for a convention.  She was here because he brought her here to set me up.”

He walked over and stood in front of Mark.  “Isn’t that right, Stilwell?  She was all just part of a little scheme you had going with Holloway, wasn’t she?”

“Ughhh...don’t yell!  I don’t know what you’re even talking about.  I didn’t bring anyone here!”

“Why  _ are _ you in Omaha, Inspector?” Mike asked in a very authoritative tone.  “You wouldn’t be given any vacation time this early.”

Mark picked up his head.  “I'm out sick, just like you.  Could you close the blinds?”

“Answer his question!” Steve snarled.

Mike held up his hand to calm the angry man.  “Steve, would you please close the blinds?” he asked calmly before taking a seat on the edge of the bed.

Steve rolled his eyes and closed the blinds.  It was too dark in there then, so he turned on a lamp.  Mark flinched at the sudden light.

“So, what are you doing here, Mark?” Mike asked again.

“I have family in Omaha,” he muttered.    

“Yet you’re staying in a hotel.  Must not be close family,” Mike said.

“I met this chick.  She’s staying here.”

“She must have been some chick if you woke up on the floor without a clue how you got there,” Steve told him.

“I didn’t say she wasn’t a crazy chick…”

Steve picked up the cassette player, disconnected the headphones, and held it up in front of Mark.  “Tell you what, Mark...I’ll give you a choice.  Either you tell us the truth, or I play what’s on this tape.”

“What is this,  _ Let’s Make a Deal _ ?”

“You see Monty Hall?” Steve snipped.  “The truth...or the tape?”

“I’ve been telling you the truth!  It’s a total coincidence that I ran into you, Steve!  Honest!”

Steve and Mike looked at each other.  “How do you feel about coincidences, Michael?” Steve asked.

“They’re usually not,” Mike answered.

Steve clicked the knob over to play and the three men listened to Mark’s hotel room conversation with Nina.  Mark repeatedly tried to protest or grab the player from Steve, but Mike gave him the Stone Glare enough times that he eventually just resigned his fate.

Once the confession had played out, Steve turned off the player and stared at Mark.  He grabbed the pictures and showed them to Mike, explaining how Stilwell and Holloway were going to use them to turn Amy against him.  Mike then looked at the pictures Nina took as evidence for he and Steve to use against Holloway. 

"They apparently figured that if they showed Amy a picture of me kissing another woman, she'd get mad and tell them anything they wanted."

"And you walked right into their trap, didn't you, Buddy Boy?" Mike said, disappointment in his voice.

He sighed.  "Yeah, well..."  He looked over at Mark.  “You know who your little ‘chick’ is?”

“My downfall?” he muttered.

“Yeah, pretty much.  She’s Haseejian’s girlfriend.”  Steve let out a short laugh.  “Guess neither one of us is very good at avoiding pitfalls."

“Okay, okay...I’m sorry!  What more can I say?”

Mike narrowed his gaze.  “You really think that a simple sorry is going to get you out of trying to set up a fellow officer?  And for what, to get his job?  You’re a smart man, Mark, and a hard worker.  You could have had a fine career with the department if you would have been patient.”

Mark suddenly snapped.  “You don’t get it!  I couldn’t just sit around and hope I got promoted!  I had to keep up with my brother!  My brother is...he's..."

"The golden boy of the department?" Steve asked, repeating what Mark had said about him.  

Mark looked up at Steve.  "You do remind me of him, yeah."

"You hate your brother, so you take it out on me.  Swell."

"No, it's not that.  I just...for the first time in my life, my father was proud of me.  He actually saw me!  Holloway even called him and bragged about how I was working with IA and cleaning up the department."

"Oh, there will be cleaning done, though I doubt it's you doing the cleaning," Mike added.

"I just thought...if I could be the hotshot of Homicide, my dad would finally like me."

Steve turned around and ran his fingers through his hair.  He couldn't believe he was being put at risk of losing his job over someone's family drama.

"And you followed Holloway despite your reservations?" Mike asked.

“I...I…” Mark stammered.  “I thought following the bosses would be a good way to go up in the world...even if it did mean bending a rule or two.”

“Bending?  I’d say you outright snapped them, especially when you broke into my office to steal evidence and then gave it to Holloway,” Mike informed him.  

“How’d you know that was me?” Mark asked, honestly flabbergasted that he had been caught.

“He’s a detective, Moron,” Steve scoffed.

Mike shot Steve a look that told him to tone down the attitude.

“Holloway made me!” Mark tried to plea.

“No, he didn’t.  You could have said no and you know it.  You’re wholly responsible for your actions.  But you know, that’s water under the bridge for now.  Since you seem to enjoy poking around in people’s affairs, you’re going to do some more of that.”

Both Mark and Steve gave Mike curious looks.

“But this time...you’re working for us, not Holloway.”

“Oh, Mike...you have got to be kidding me!” Steve shouted.  “You want the enemy working with us?!”

“Hey!” Mark protested.

“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” Mike reminded him.

“I am not the enemy!” Mark tried to protest.  “I’m not the only one here who did something wrong, you know!  How many rules did you break, Keller?  How many are you still breaking?"

"What do you mean, still breaking?!  I'm not..."

"Investigating an open case while on suspension.  Conflict of interest...again.  Oh, and kidnapping."

"Kidnapping?" Mike inquired.

Mark looked straight at Steve.  "That little brat you're dragging around - she's not yours to take.  She legally belongs to her aunt and uncle in Arizona.  So what's she doing here?  I have two notions to call Child Services, or maybe the FBI..."

Steve lunged at Mark.  Mike leapt up and blocked him from attacking Mark, who quickly pushed his chair back a bit in an attempt to dodge Steve’s rage.  

Mike mentioned to Steve that losing his temper would just add fuel to Mark’s fire.  He then suggested that Steve go back to his room, but Steve would not budge.

“I’m fine, Mike.  Honest.  But if he says one more thing about my daughter…”

“Your daughter?!  She’s not your daughter!  God, you’re not even living in reality!  How anyone could think you’re well enough to do your job…”

Despite Mike’s efforts to keep his partner out of trouble, Steve managed to get around him and punch Mark in the face.  The inspector fell to the floor as the chair tipped over.  

Mike pulled Steve away and told him to go stand by the door, which he did begrudgingly.  Mike then stood and watched Mark attempt to get off the floor after being blindsided.  He made no effort to help the man straighten up.

“Are you gonna let him get away with that?” Mark asked.

“You know you had that coming, so just be grateful you didn’t get it worse.  Sit down.”

Mark picked up the chair and sat it back by the window.  He then plopped himself down while trying to readjust his jaw.

Mike sat back down on the bed and held up the photos and the tapes.  “Whatever you think you have on Steve, it’s not nearly as damaging as what we have here on you.  The minute I show this stuff to Devitt and Olson…how well do you actually like your job?”

Mark sighed.  “Is there any way I can persuade you not to do that?  Hmm?  Second chance maybe?”

“Why don’t you get down on your knees if you’re going to grovel like a hungry dog,” Steve snapped from his corner.   

Mike ignored him.  "Here's the deal.  You tell us everything you know about Holloway's investigation, and I'll consider making some of this stuff go away," he said, indicating the evidence.

"Mike!" Steve began to protest, but Mike raised his hand to cut him off.

Mark stayed quiet, looking at his lap and contemplating the move that would most benefit him.

During the pause, Steve added, “You realize that Lieutenant Stone has a lot more power than Sergeant Holloway, right?  Holloway can’t protect you.  In fact, he’ll just throw you under the bus.”

“He wouldn’t do that,” Mark argued.  “He respects me more than that.”

“Sergeant Holloway is just using you, Son.  You’re nothing but a pawn to him.  Sure, he may have called your father and bragged about you, but that was just so that he could keep you hooked.  He doesn’t care about you or your career.  In fact, I wouldn’t put it past him to turn you in after he’s done with Steve.  You know too much, so he’ll get you before you get him.” 

Mark looked up at the ceiling.  He sighed, knowing full well how stupid he had been to side with a piranha like Holloway.  He thought for a second more then looked at Mike and asked, "All I have to do is tell you what I know?"

"Don't make it sound so easy.  The deal only stands if we get the real dirty cop here - Holloway - kicked off the force...which means you're probably going to be doing a lot of digging.  Into his past, his present, his work, his life...nothing's off limits."

"Lieutenant, do you know how difficult that's gonna be?  I have a feeling he has spies everywhere!"

Mike shrugged like he couldn't care less.

Mark rubbed his eyes.  "Whadaya wanna know?"

"He sent you here to find Amy before we did, right?"

He nodded.  "But I don't know where she is.  I was hoping Steve'd tell Kathryn where you guys thought she was, but then he handed her that story about Amy being sick instead."

He rolled his eyes as he looked across the room at Steve.  Steve just smirked.

"I was gonna call hospitals today, see if maybe she was in one under another name or as a Jane Doe.  Her mother would have surely gotten her medical attention, no?"

Mike shook his head.  "Not necessarily.  Besides, Sergeant Drake already contacted hospitals here."

Mark shook his head.  "Holloway intercepted that request.  If she'd been admitted anywhere, he'd have been the first to know."

He looked into Mike's eyes.  "If I knew where she was, I'd tell you, honest to God.  If he knows, he's not saying, and I think he'd tell me.”

“Why should we trust you?  Not like you have a habit of telling the truth,” Steve wondered aloud.

“Look, I may have been determined to get your job, but I’m not out to ruin your life.”  He looked down at his lap in shame.  “At first, I couldn’t understand why everyone was protecting a man who seemed content to completely disregard the rules of his position, but then I read that letter Amy wrote you.  You’re a lucky man, Steve...to have a girl like that.  I guess I was also a bit jealous.  I really am sorry.  I can only imagine what you’ve been going through.  And...I may have reacted the same way if I’d have been in your shoes.”

Steve subtly nodded.

“But Holloway...he  _ is _ out to ruin you.  He has no sympathy whatsoever.  All he sees is a man who’s about to snap and get half the force killed in the process.  He thinks Amy has somehow ruined your sense of right and wrong or something, and now that she’s missing, you’re just going to go out and, I dunno...he worries me to be honest.  I mean, he thinks you killed Paul Carpenter on purpose just so that you didn’t have him as a rival for Amy’s affections anymore.  That doesn’t really even make sense!”

Steve chuckled.  “Yet you were willing to blindly do whatever this asshole wanted you to?”

Mark shook his head.  “So it took me awhile to realize how crazy he is.  Sue me.”

“I’d like to,” Steve muttered.

“Steven…” Mike warned.

“Okay, okay.”  He stepped out of his corner cautiously in case father would try to put him back.  "What is his deal then?  Why is he so hell-bent on persecuting me?  He got his suspension.  Why is he still after me?"

Mark paused, remember the discussion between him and Holloway at the Ritz.  “It has to do with something out of his past.  Apparently he used to be on the force in Chicago, and he had this good friend whose partner was an - in his words - an arrogant pretty boy son of a bitch.  You remind him of this guy,” he said, looking at Steve.

“I’m not a son of a bitch,” Steve replied, shrugging.

“Well, this guy got a woman shot during a bank robbery, but she fell in love with him anyway.”

Mike nodded knowingly while Steve rolled his eyes.  “He’s the son of a bitch,” he grumbled.

“Turns out, the woman was working with the robbers.  Her new boyfriend ends up telling her all sorts of things about the investigation, which she in turns leaks to the guys, who are still at large I guess.  They decide to kill the robbery detectives before they get caught.  That led to another shootout where Holloway’s friend was killed.”

“And he blames his friend’s partner for his death,” Mike finished.

Mark nodded.  

“He thinks Steve is this guy, Amy’s the woman, and Steve told Amy things that she should not know - things that I guess will get someone killed.”  Mark shrugged.  “I don’t see it...I don’t really get it, but he believes it like gospel.  I told him that the circumstances were actually quite different, but he snapped and told me that was because he didn’t have enough time to investigate.”

“So he decided to investigate on his own,” Steve said.

“Does Captain Boyle know he’s doing this?” Mike asked.

“I don’t think so, but I don’t know that for sure,” Mark answered.  

Mike sat and considered all the information he had just been handed.  “I want you to look into his past with Chicago PD.  Find out everything you can about his record and this incident,” he said, looking at Mark.  “Something more than just losing his friend set him off.”

He stood up, told Mark to stand up, and the trio headed toward the door.

“Where are we going?” Mark asked.

“To the airport.  You’re going home.”

“Right now?” Mark groaned, not loving the idea of flying halfway across the country with a hangover.

“I think we can all agree that this mess needs to be taken care of sooner rather than later,” Mike told him.  “Just make sure you avoid Holloway at all costs.  I don’t want him getting suspicious.”

“Oh, I don’t think I’ll have to worry about that, Sir,” Mark replied.

“Why not?” Steve asked.

Holloway got into a pocket of his pants and pulled out a small slip of paper.  “He told me if I needed anything while I was in Omaha to call him at this number.  But that’s not a San Francisco area code.  He must be out of town.”

Steve took the paper from him and looked at the number.  He then handed it to Mike and said, “He’s here.  That’s Omaha’s area code.”

Mike looked at the number, which did start with 402.  “Well, to be fair, 402 covers a large chunk of the state.  This number isn’t necessarily an Omaha number, but it does mean he’s a lot closer than he should be.”  He turned to Mark.  “You talked to him at this number?”

Mark nodded.  “Yesterday after I got into town.”

“Which was about the same time we got here,” Steve added.

“Why would he be here?  Is he checking up on me or something?” Mark asked, a slight bit of apprehension in his voice.

Mike shook his head.  “I think he knows much more than he’s leading on.”  He looked at Steve.  “Remember the other night when I told you that Margaret was a master manipulator, and that she probably had a hand in Paul’s murders?”

Steve slowly nodded.  “Yeah...so?”  He narrowed his eyes as thoughts flooded his mind.  “You don’t think…?  No, that wouldn’t happen.”

“What wouldn’t happen?” Mark asked.

“Buddy Boy, he knew things that weren’t in any case file, like how you took dinner to Amy’s apartment, or where and when you took her out on a date.  There’s no way he would have known that unless someone told him.  Paul knew, but Paul never met Holloway.  You see who’s missing from the middle here?”

Steve shook his head and looked down at the ground.  “She would try to pull something like this.”

“You no longer being a cop certainly would please her.”

“What are you guys talking about?” Mark asked again.

“Margaret Johnson.  She’s in collusion with Holloway.”

“He’s working with a kidnapper?!  Shit.”

“So while you’re looking into his past, you’ll also be looking for evidence of a connection between those two.  Letters, phone calls, anything.  Find something!”

Mark nodded at the lieutenant.  “I guess if he’s out here, and they’re working together...then you two are on the right track, no?”

Steve let out a very slight smile. 


	37. Chapter 37

**_Sunday, May 26, 1974_ **

After dropping off Mark at the airport with explicit instructions as to what his task was once landing in San Francisco, Mike and Steve headed to the psychiatric hospital.  At the front desk, Mike apologized for being late, but the nurse assured him everything was fine; Doctor Melton was running late himself.  The two inspectors took seats in the lobby and waited for the man to come for them.

“You really think this guy will be able to help us find her?” Steve inquired after a brief moment of silence.

“Can’t hurt.  Isn’t this what the FBI does - gets into a criminal’s head?  It seems to work for them.”

Steve shrugged.  “What about Stilwell?  You don’t think he’ll double cross us, do you?  Go back home and rat us out to Holloway?”

Mike shook his head.  “No way.  Let me lay a little psychology on you.  I’ve seen plenty of guys like him over the years.  Very eager to please anyone who will get them to the top of the food chain.  I think he knows who’s going to help him more in this situation, and it’s not Holloway.”

Mike turned and looked at his partner.  “What’s with all the doubt?  I thought you were actually positive about something for once.”

“I...I am.  It is a good sign that Holloway is around here somewhere if he’s so determined to find Amy.  I just...I’m sorry.”

“About what?”

“Last night.  I should have seen that coming...but I walked right into instead.”

“You do realize you’re human, right?” Mike asked.

Steve gave him a confused look.  “Well, yeah?”

“So you have weak moments.  You have stress.  You have worries.  Last night, you were worried about Jasmine - about some pictures she drew?”

Steve scoffed.  “She tells you everything, doesn’t she?”

“Concerning you, yes.  You add that worry to all the other stress and worry you’ve put on yourself, and you were bound to snap.”

“By slapping a child?”

“Buddy Boy, I don’t know a parent alive who hasn’t done something to their child in a moment of weakness that they later deeply regretted.  You’re tired, your child is acting up, nothing you say gets through to them...next thing you know you’ve slapped them, or yelled at them, or said something you shouldn’t have.  The second you do it, you know it’s wrong, and you feel absolutely awful.  They scream that they hate you or that you’re the meanest dad alive...and that doesn’t hurt at all compared to the pain you’re inflicting upon yourself.”

Steve nodded knowingly.

“You’re so upset at yourself, that you go off and do something stupid as a form of self-punishment.  You...you drank a bit much maybe and kissed an old girlfriend.  But look at the bright side - it uncovered a conspiracy.”

“There’s actually an upside?”

“Every cloud has a silver lining they say.”

An older man with salt and pepper hair came through a double door and looked at the men in the lobby.  “Lieutenant Stone, I presume?” he asked Mike, extending his hand in greeting.

Mike and Steve stood up, and Mike shook the gentleman’s hand.  “Call me Mike.  This is Steve Keller, my partner.”

The man shook Steve’s hand.  “Doctor Melton, but please, call me Dale.  Follow me.”

Mike and Steve followed Dr. Melton through the double doors, which led them into a patient hallway.  Steve glanced around at his surroundings, which he didn’t expect to be so quiet.  The only patients he saw at first were a couple of ladies who looked like they hadn’t seen a hairbrush since the war.  They were sitting at a table in one of the rooms playing cards.

“Seems awful quiet in here,” he commented.

“Did you expect screaming or something?” Dr. Melton asked with a chuckle.  “That’s mostly Hollywood.  Almost all of our patients are no louder than a normal public place.  Many of them prefer to keep to themselves.”

Mike swatted Steve on the arm and shook his head.

“What?” Steve whispered back.  He didn’t think what he’d said was all that terrible.

“That’s not to say we don’t have our share of moments.  At least once a week someone has an episode.  It can get hectic.”

“Once a week?  Fifty-two ‘episodes’ a year, huh?” Steve said, noticing a man sitting in the corner of the hallway pulling out his own hair.  Steve shook his head.

They walked by a common room where another man was drawing furiously on the walls with magic markers and muttering incoherently.  He was manically drawing squiggles to the point of pressing the tips of the markers down to nothing.  Steve couldn’t help but stop and stare.

“Abstract, isn’t it?” Dr. Melton said after noticing he’d lost one of his guests.

“You could call it that.  Patients are allowed to draw on the walls?”

“It washes off.  Anything to calm the demons, you know?”

“Um...yeah,” Steve muttered as he continued down the hall.  He was now seriously doubting this trip would do any good.  

The trio continued to the end of the hallway and into a small office.  The place was highly organized - not a book or paper out of place.  It was unlike any office Steve had ever seen.  It looked like no one ever used it.

“Have a seat, Gents,” Dr. Melton said, pointing at two upholstered seats positioned evenly in front of the desk.  

Steve looked around and noticed that not only was everything neat and orderly, it was also symmetrical and evenly spaced.  He moved his chair slightly before sitting down just to see if it was attached to the floor.

“I was surprised when Dr. Murchison told me he’d spoken to someone who was here over thirty years ago,” Mike stated.

Dr. Melton laughed.  “It is rare in my profession.  The stress and chaos can get to you at times...but I bet the same could be said for your profession.  You’re in Homicide, is that correct?”

Mike nodded.  “It does occasionally make you stop and reconsider your life.  But then you help a victim’s family or get a dangerous person off the streets, and it reminds you why you go through all the stress.  Plus, a good quiet fishing trip always helps.”

The two older men chuckled.  “Absolutely.  Ever taken a quiet drive through the country?  Very calming.  Puts order back into your life,” Dr. Melton replied.

Steve now understood the obsessive order of the room; it was combatting the chaos just on the other side of the door.

Mike and Dr. Melton continued discussing their off-work activities until Steve, annoyed with even the slightest delay in finding his girlfriend, reminded them why they were there.

“Sorry,” Dr. Melton apologized.  He leaned over in his seat behind his desk and grabbed a cardboard box, which he then set on the desk top.

“I do have to thank you gentlemen though.  After speaking with Dr. Murchison, I got to thinking about the Nielsens.  I dug out everything I could find on their cases.  It was a fascinating walk down memory lane.”

“Fascinating?” Steve asked, highly skeptical of anything dealing with Margaret being fascinating.

“From a psychological standpoint, yes.  They were both tough nuts to crack.”  The doctor looked up at his guests and winced.  “Poor choice of words.”

Steve had to snicker.  “You said both.  Are you referring to…”

“Clara and Margaret.  Not patients at the same time...and certainly not the same in personality.  See, I was an intern when Mrs. Nielsen first came to us.  Honestly scared out of her wits, the poor woman.  I had never seen a more paranoid person.”

“About what, her daughter?” Mike asked.

Dr. Melton shook his head.  “Mostly her husband at that point.  She came to us after she tried to burn her house down and kill both herself and her children.  When initially asked why she did that, she said it was because she was afraid he would kill them, so she was going to do it first.”

“He was abusive, correct?” Steve added.

“That he was.  The police in Bennington had a file on him thick as the Omaha phone book.”

“Bennington?” Steve asked, not knowing what that was.

“The little town they were all from.  It’s only a few miles north of here.”

Mike and Steve looked at each other, realizing this new piece of information may lead them somewhere.   

"At first, she willingly admitted that Leon abused her and their two daughters, but she kept letting him come and see her.  Eventually, she changed her story and praised him for being a loving husband and father.  To be quite honest, we never could tell if she was lying or not."

"Wasn't there proof?" Mike asked.

"Not physical, and mental...well, we couldn't tell if she had been verbally abused or if it was all her illness.  Sure, Leon Nielsen was a brute - anyone who met him could see that - but as to how much of her problem was on him...hard telling.  It was a different time.  Women like her were not victims of their husbands; they were just hysterical.  No one really considered anything else."

Doctor Melton stood up and dug through the box, handing both inspectors several file folders. 

Mike looked at him curiously.  “Should we be looking at these…?”

Dr. Melton sat back down and crossed his hands over his stomach.  “Correct me if I am wrong, but the reason you’re both here is because of a crime?”

“A kidnapping...at the least,” Steve added.

“At the least.  At the worst, your victim could be in imminent danger, no?”

Steve and Mike looked at each other and then back at the psychiatrist.  They slowly nodded.

“If something in the medical records of either woman can lead you to saving a life, confidentiality is not an issue.”

“Fair enough.”  Steve shrugged.  He wasn’t overly concerned about legal matters at the moment.  Perusing the files on Clara, he asked, "How similar is Margaret to her mother?"

"In some ways, very similar.  That girl could lie like no one I'd seen - or have seen since.  Couldn't tell when she was lying or telling the truth either.  On the other hand, she was also very angry and showed violent tendencies as well as a disregard for rules.”

“Violent  _ tendencies _ ?” Mike asked.  “Was she ever violent?”

“Not while she was here...but that’s not to say she wasn’t outside of this hospital.  She was certainly angry enough, and she had grown up with a father who was violent - not only toward her, but people in general.  It would not surprise me a bit if she had reacted violently toward someone at least once in her life.”

“You know what she was angry about?” Steve inquired.

“The fact that her mother was in here for starters.  She blamed that all on her father even though I told her many times that this was the best place for Clara.  She just could not accept that there was something wrong with her mother.”

Mike shrugged.  “That’s somewhat understandable.”

“Surely, but that understanding stops when the girl repeatedly tries to break her mother out of here.”

Both Mike and Steve looked questioningly at the doctor.

“Clara was here for two years, and in that time, Margaret tried to kidnap her on over a dozen occasions.  She succeeded a few times, but Clara always came back.  I asked her why once.  She said she liked it better in here away from Margaret.  Said Margaret was too demanding and scared her.”

Steve shook his head in disbelief.  “So she’d had plenty of practice kidnapping when she took Amy.”  He looked up at Dr. Melton.  “Clara ever say why Margaret took her...or maybe where they went or what they did?”

Mike looked over at his partner.  “You’re thinking she’d take Amy the same place she took her mother?”

He shrugged.  “At this point, I’ll grab at any straw.”

Dr. Melton looked through the pile of folders until he found the one he wanted.  Pulling it out, he opened it and skimmed through several papers.

“Here we go.  After every time Margaret managed to get her off the hospital grounds, one of the staff would talk to her when she came back.  She was usually in an agitated state by then, so take what she said with skepticism.  Here, she mentions going to some farm house.  It says she knew whose house it was, but she never told us.  She also claims to have been held in a barn on the outskirts of Bennington.

“As for what they did...she mentions Margaret trying to get her to stop seeing Leon...Margaret tried to get Clara to go to California with her and her little sister...looks like it was mostly Margaret trying to get Clara to do what she wanted her to do.”

“This sounds familiar,” Steve muttered under his breath.

Dr. Melton looked through a few more papers.  “Here is the transcript I did with Margaret after one of her kidnappings.  She wasn’t a patient of mine, but the police were going to charge her, so I asked if I could talk to her first.”  He handed the transcript to Mike.

“Was she ever arrested?” Steve asked.

Dr. Melton shook his head.  “That I can’t say.  She should have been, though jail would not have been the place for her.  She belonged here.”

“May I ask why?” 

“Steve...may I call you Steve?”

He nodded.

“Steve...have you ever known someone who carried on a string of passionate, yet unsuccessful relationships and always blamed the demise on the other person?  Or someone who was impulsive to the point of harming themselves or others?  Maybe a person who always has to be the center of attention and would do anything to achieve that, including pretending to be a victim?  How about someone who threatens or attempts suicide any time they initially don’t get their way?  Someone who turns on people after just one transgression...they absolutely cannot forgive.  Yet...when that person abandons them, they can’t let them go.  A person without an empathetic bone in their body.  If it’s not about them, they just don’t care.”

“I sure see a lot of that in this interview,” Mike said.

Steve thought back to the conversation he and Mike had had with Lenny.  The psychiatrist had mentioned three personality disorders that could be tied to Margaret’s behavior.  “Borderline, histrionic, and narcissistic personality disorders,” he told the man.  “Which needs treated, not punished in the conventional way.” 

Dr. Melton nodded.  “You took some psychology classes?”

Steve shrugged.  “A couple.  Are those what you’re thinking?”

“Indeed they are.  The three disorders are all in the same cluster - dramatic, emotional, and erratic behavior are all hallmarks of these disorders.  Antisocial personality is also part of that cluster, which she not only witnessed in her father, but also took on herself.  Do you have any idea why Margaret would have kidnapped her own daughter?"

Steve looked down at his lap, so Mike jumped in with an answer.  “We believe she is trying to keep her daughter away from the girl’s boyfriend.”

“Is he abusive toward her daughter?”

“No, not at all,” Steve quickly spit out, sounding more defensive than he should.  "Margaret just wanted her daughter back in Los Angeles to take care of her."

“No regard for her daughter’s right to live her own life.  Sounds like what she did with Clara.  Margaret wanted her mother to live life her way.”

Steve swallowed hard.  “And just how did Clara die again?”

Dr. Melton paused before he answered.  “She hanged herself in her room.”

Mike immediately turned to his partner.  “Not gonna happen here.  Not at all.  Amy is not her grandmother.”  He turned back to the doctor.  “Any indication why she decided to take her own life?”

Dr. Melton leaned over and began sifting through the file folders again.  He picked out the one on the bottom and opened it.  After finding an old and brittle paper from the back, he handed it to Mike.  “Read for yourself.”

Steve looked over Mike’s shoulder and the two read the letter together silently.  It was an average length letter, but it was quite succinct in its point, which was who was to blame for the hanging.  Clara pulled no punches in blaming Margaret for every trouble she had ever suffered.  She called the girl “the devil” and a “demon child.”  She claimed no one was safe with her around.  Margaret was highly upset about many decisions Clara had made in her life, especially when it came to people.  In fact, Clara claimed Margaret was angry enough to kill, so in the same fashion as two years prior, Clara Nielsen chose to get out before anything happened.  

“She killed herself to get away from her daughter?!”  Mike had not seen that twist coming.  “I assumed it was more due to her husband.”

Steve sat back.  Mike looked over and noticed much of the color had drained from his face.

“You alright?”

Steve nodded without really looking at him.  He then stuck out his hand and took the letter.  “Who do you suppose this Roy guy is?”

Dr. Melton jumped in.  “That name came up a lot, but she never told anyone who he was.  I do remember, however, mentioning him to Margaret.  She never said who he was either, but she did not like him.  At all.”

“ _ She made sure that Roy was out of my life.  He was the only one who cared, and she took that away _ ,” Steve read.  “That’s a bit cryptic.  You suppose this guy is still alive?”

“And if he is, what exactly did Margaret do to him and why?”

Steve suddenly got quiet.  He looked back down at the letter.

“What are you thinking?” Mike asked him.

“I don’t know...the way she talks about the guy.  Calls him caring, sweet, an angel...it’s a complete contrast to the words she uses to describe Margaret.  She’s generally cordial to Leon I guess, but even so, the only person she speaks well of is this Roy.”  He looked up at both men.  “He was probably her boyfriend!”

Dr. Melton’s face said that he found the theory perfectly acceptable, but Mike was not so sure.  

“Just because she didn’t say anything bad about him doesn’t automatically make him a love interest.”

“People like Margaret fear abandonment, correct?” Steve asked Dr. Melton.

“Absolutely.  It often takes a huge toll on their self-esteem, so they do just about anything to avoid it.”

“Okay, so let’s say this man comes along and he’s everything to Clara that her husband is not.  He makes me feel good.  Maybe they spend a lot of time together, or maybe he even talks about them getting out of...where was it they lived?”

“Bennington,” Dr. Melton answered.

“To Margaret, either one would be abandonment.  You heard what Margaret did when she kidnapped Clara - she tried to get her to stop seeing people, move to California with her...the same lines Margaret handed Amy for years!  Margaret tried to control her friends, who she dated, where she lived, where she went to school…”

“You’re comparing Clara to Amy and this Roy guy to…”

“Amy’s boyfriend, yeah.”  He cleared his throat.  “We could very well be looking at the exact same thing here, Mike.”

Steve looked over at Dr. Melton for assurance that his theory wasn’t completely unrealistic.  

“Like I said...they fear abandonment almost over everything else.  If Margaret saw either her mother or her daughter abandoning her…” Dr. Melton said.

“We need to visit Bennington,” Mike said soberly.


	38. Chapter 38

**_Sunday, May 26, 1974_ **

The trip to Bennington was quiet.  Steve was busy writing down details in his notebook, including things they wanted to discuss with the Bennington Police.  Mike also knew that he was dwelling on the comparison of Clara and Amy.  He wanted to tell the boy that even though the circumstances seemed similar right now, he highly doubted that they were.  He kept quiet though, realizing that an argument would do neither any good.  Steve would not be convinced of anything that differed from his own thoughts until he saw Amy standing in front of him.

Forty-five minutes later, Mike pulled his car into the small town of Bennington, just as Tim and company had done two days earlier.  He also stopped at the same gas station to ask for directions to the police station.  After being informed of the station’s location, Mike got back in the car and found Steve still going over his notes.  

“You’ve read over those things a hundred times now.  What more can you glean from them?”

Steve shrugged and closed the book.  “I don’t know.  I keep thinking that another clue will jump out I guess.”

“Well, if we can find someone who was either around thirty years ago, or who could dig through old case files for us, I think we will put some locations with those theories.  Margaret’s mother mentioned an old farmhouse and a barn.  Maybe someone can link Margaret with those places.  And in a town this size, I’m sure everyone knows who that Roy character is.”

“Or was,” Steve uttered pessimistically.  

Mike pulled the car onto N156th Street and looked at his partner.  “For all we know, the man could have left town and died of natural causes.  Keep your chin up, Buddy Boy.”

Steve half rolled his eyes and turned his attention out the window.  A minute later, they were at the station, which appeared to be the same size as the Homicide department back home.  

Getting out of the car, Steve looked at the building and said, “Why do they even have a department?”

“Because everyone is entitled to protection?  Come on.”

The two walked into the small station and saw a middle aged woman sitting at a desk.  She looked up when they came in.

“Afternoon, Gentlemen,” she greeted slowly, noticeably shocked by the fact that she did not know them.  “Can I help you with something.”

Mike reached into his pocket and pulled out his badge.  He then explained the whole story of how a couple of big city homicide detectives wound up in small town Nebraska looking for information from thirty years ago.

She smiled at the two strangers.  “Wow...this whole thing sounds incredibly interesting.  I mean, nothing like that happens around here, ya know?  But people from here are involved?”

“We think so Ma’am, yes,” Steve replied.  “Is there anyone around who was perhaps on the force in the late 30’s, early 40’s?”

She laughed and shouted to a young man in uniform in an office behind her.  “Where’s Garrett?”

“I think he went out to appease Old Lady Marlowe.  She called complaining about stray cats again.”  He chuckled.  

She turned back to Mike and Steve.  “Well, maybe it’s not big city crime.”

Both chuckled.  She got on the radio and called Garrett back to the station on an “emergency.”

“Oh, it’s not an emergency,” Mike blurted out.  “We can wait.”

“Lieutenant, trust me, he’ll appreciate the call.  Anything to get away from Mrs. Marlowe.  He should be here in a minute.”

She offered them coffee and then asked about how their investigation led to Bennington.  Mike told her he shouldn’t comment on an open case, but he promised her that he would sooth her curiosities once it was over.

In walked a tall man wearing a plaid shirt and jeans.  Neither Mike nor Steve realized this man was indeed who they were waiting for.

“Gentlemen, this is Chief Garrett.  Garrett, this is Lieutenant Stone and Inspector Keller from the San Francisco Police,” the eager receptionist announced.

All three men shook hands.  

“They need your expertise on something that happened thirty years ago.  You’re old, so I figure you might be of some help,” she laughed.

“There goes your Christmas bonus, Harriet,” Garrett joked before leading the two men into his office.

He had them sit down, and Mike explained to him why they were there.  Throughout the entire explanation, Steve watched the man’s facial expressions.  To him, the chief did not seem surprised at all.

“Do you remember any of the Nielsen family?” Mike finally asked.

Garrett let out a chuckle.  “Remember them?  Like it was just yesterday.  One or two deviants might not make waves in San Francisco, but in a town of only a few hundred, they rock the entire boat.  In a way, that whole clan is kind of legendary around here.”

“Not in a good way I assume,” Mike said.

Garrett shook his head.  “All the Nielsen boys had rap sheets as long as my arm.  If it was illegal, they had a hand in it.  But you’re curious about the ladies?”

“Clara Nielsen and her daughter Margaret.”

Garrett shook his head.  “Margaret...that girl was nuts...and that’s saying something.  My boss at the time thought I was just out to make trouble or something, but I always thought there was something seriously wrong with that girl, even more so than her pop.”

“What did she do?” Mike inquired.

“For starters. she was a teenage stalker.  I just could never prove it enough to arrest her.”

“Who did she stalk?” Steve asked apprehensively.

“A boy in town.  Name was Jesse Atkins.  I was good friends with his older brother, so Jesse and I kinda grew up together.  At first, she and Jesse were just sweethearts, but then she got a little too clingy.  And I don’t mean the normal type of clingy that most women are.”

“Watch it, Buster!” Harriet shouted from the lobby.

Both San Franciscans chuckled.

“Well, you know what I mean.”  He looked toward the door and shouted, “They know what I meant, Harriet!”

“Are you saying she was more the type who called this boy a hundred times a day, showed up at his house uninvited..." Steve suggested.

"Yep.  Outwardly, Jesse acted like it didn't bother him, but I knew better.  He was genuinely scared of that girl."

Garrett turned around in his chair and grabbed some newspapers.  He plopped them down on the desk in front of Mike and Steve, who picked them up out of curiosity.

"He had good reason to be scared.  Look at the articles about Douglas County cold cases."

The two inspectors began scanning the same articles Amy had poured over a dozen times.  Mike was the first to run into the information on Jesse.

"Shot twice in the back as he was apparently running from his killer.  No valuable evidence or eyewitnesses."  He looked up at Chief Garrett.  "I take it you have other ideas?"

"It was her; no one around here could prove it though, and trust me, I tried.  This kid had no enemies, didn't hang around with a bad crowd...except for Margaret.  She'd already been stalking him, and her instability was well-known.  Plus, she had access to her father's weapons.  Jesse was killed with a Colt .45, and Leon Nielsen owned a Colt .45."

"Military.  Nice," Mike muttered.  “No one could connect his gun to this?”

“Never found it.  Didn’t have enough evidence to get a search warrant.”

Suddenly, Steve got all excited.  “Mike, Mike, look at this.  Roy Dillingston.  You don’t suppose this is the Roy we’re looking for?”

Mike looked over at what Steve was reading.  “Another unsolved.”  He turned to Garrett.  “You know him?”

Garrett shook his head.  “No, but I remember the case.  Found him rotting in a field.  No evidence there either.”

“That name I do remember,” Harriet interjected from the doorway.  “Rumor had it at the time that he was seeing Clara Nielsen on the sly.  Then he up and disappears?  We all figured Leon took care of him.”

“He _was_ her boyfriend…” Steve uttered before pausing to think.  “It all makes sense now.”

“What does?” Garrett asked the young man.

“Clara hanged herself because she was afraid of her daughter.  I get the feeling she knew Margaret had something to do with Roy’s disappearance.  If Roy was going to take Clara away from her...she might have stopped him permanently.  And then there’s Jesse, who also left her.  I think violent tendencies turned into actual violence.”

He looked at Chief Garrett.  “Has Margaret been seen around here lately?”

The chief shook his head and looked at his receptionist.  “I wouldn’t know, but you know who would?  Trudy.  Call her,” Garrett told Harriet.  She left to make her phone call.

“Who’s Trudy?” Mike asked.

“Town gossip.  Nothing gets by her.  If Margaret has come back here, Trudy would know.  I sometimes wonder if the woman isn’t a witch.”

Mike snickered, but Steve kept his stoic manner about him.  “You seemed to know Margaret well.  Were there any places where she hid out maybe?  Like a barn, or an old abandoned house?”

Garrett slowly nodded.  “Yeah, a barn.  She used to go to this old abandoned farm just north of town.  Can’t walk there, but being too young to drive never phased Margaret.  I used to go out there on the sly after Jesse was killed just to see if I could catch her at something.”

Steve bolted up out of his chair.  “Let’s go!”

Garrett looked at him questioningly as Mike slowly stood.

“Go where?  To that barn?  What for?” the chief asked.

Steve looked at Mike.  “She might be there!  She took her own mother there, so why not her daughter?”

Mike turned from his partner to Garrett.  “After Clara got sent to the institution, Margaret broke her out several times.  According to Clara, her daughter held her in an old barn.  Margaret might be holding her daughter there now.”

Garrett stood up as well.  “Good enough for me, but I’m not sure the old place is even still there.”

“We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it,” Mike told him as the three walked out of Garrett’s office.

“No answer at Trudy’s,” Harriet told her boss on his way out.

“Cody!  Go find Trudy and ask her if she’s seen Margaret Nielsen in town lately, then radio me,” Garrett told the young officer.

“Right away, Boss,” the young man shouted back.

* * *

The rain had made the country roads nothing but puddles of mud.  Garrett was having a difficult time maneuvering his AMC Matador squad car through and around the hazards, giving the San Franciscans a bumpier ride than even they were used to.  Eventually, the three men arrived on what appeared to be long-abandoned land.  The vegetation was highly overgrown and the trees were rotting away, but deep inside a thicket of them was a dilapidated red barn.  

“Is that it?” Steve asked through the rain drops.

“Yep.  Surprised it hasn’t fallen in on itself.  It wasn’t in good shape thirty years ago.  Follow me.”

Garrett drew his gun as the men walked quietly toward the barn.  Steve looked around and did not see any indication that anyone was still there, but he also was not interested in running into Margaret.  The only person he wanted to see was Amy.

The men found the barn doors all locked tight or stuck, but Mike did find one window broken out, so the three climbed into the barn through there.  Garrett did an initial sweep but, much to Steve’s dismay, found it empty.

“There’s got to be something here...some clue she left behind.  We need to toss the place,” he told the other two.

“I don’t know if that’s such a…” Mike tried to say, but Steve cut him off.

“Look for clues that she was here,” the boy growled.

The two older men looked at each other, nodded sympathetically, and started looking around the barn for anything they could find.  Garrett climbed into the loft with a flashlight while Mike and Steve stayed on the ground.  The barn was dark since many of the windows had been painted over, so finding anything was proving difficult.

Steve was growing more frustrated by the second.  In his frustration, he started kicking at stray straw until he kicked something that was a lot stronger.  He wailed in pain.

“Steve, what happened?” Mike shouted from across the barn.

“I kicked something.”  He looked down and, after brushing away some hay, found an old wooden-frame bed with a mattress.  “It’s a bed!”

“A bed?”

“Yeah, a bed!  That means someone’s been here, right?”

Mike didn’t answer; he simply started walking toward his partner.  Meanwhile, Steve was doing his best to look all around the bed in the dark.  He saw and felt nothing of interest beside or under it, so he grabbed the mattress and tossed it to the side.  On the frame laid three diary-sized books with brown leather covers.  One of the books had a small piece of paper sticking out of the top.  Steve took all three books and went to the broken-out window.

“What did you find, Buddy Boy?”

“I don’t know.  Looks like diaries.”

“Could be Margaret’s,” Mike suggested.

Once he got to the window, Steve opened one diary and pulled out the piece of stray paper.  It was folded, and almost immediately upon unfolding it, Steve began to tear up.

“She was here.  She was here, Mike!  She was here!”

Mike approached him as he was holding up the paper.  “Look!  She wrote this!  She was here!”

Mike took the paper and gave it a glance.  All he took the time to notice was that it was addressed to Steve and signed by Amy.  He gave the paper back to his partner, turned around, and shouted up to the loft, “They were here!”

“Lieutenant, I may have found something up here too.  Could you come give me a hand?” Garrett shouted down.

Mike went to see what Garrett had found, leaving Steve to read his note in peace.

_Steve,_

_I hope I get to tell you all this in person, but if not...well...at least make sure these families get the justice they’ve been denied for so long.  These diaries are my mom’s, and they’re very telling.  Steve, she killed them, I know she did.  Roy, Jesse...I think she even had a hand in killing her own father.  With these, I can’t prove anything, but I hope you can.  Don’t let her get away with this.  I feel terrible that I never even realized how deranged my mother was.  I should have seen it...I should have seen something._

_Tell them all I’m sorry for what my mother did.  And I’m sorry for what she did to you._

_And Steve...if I never see you again, always remember I loved you, and look out for Jasmine.  She loves you too._

_Amy_

He carefully placed the page back in the diary and turned to the first page.  All he could wonder now was where Amy was at the present.  If she had managed to write him that note, maybe she wrote other things down that would lead to her current whereabouts.

Before he could read anything though, he heard Garrett exuberantly announce, “Colt .45.  I knew it!”

Steve closed the diary, stuffed it and the other two in his jacket pockets, and wandered toward the ladder that led up to the loft.

“You said Jesse was killed by a Colt .45,” Mike said to Garrett.  “Is that bullet still in evidence?”

“If it is, it’s with the Douglas County Sheriff.  I’ll put in a call.  This thing doesn’t look like it’s been fired lately; probably been in that rafter since she shot him.”

The two men started climbing down the ladder.  At the bottom, Garrett announced that he was declaring the barn a crime scene and calling the Douglas County Sheriff’s Department to assist with combing through the barn.  They all walked out of the barn and back to the cruiser.  Garrett immediately put in a call to Harriet and explained the situation to her.  She then got off the radio to call Omaha.

Soon after, Garrett got a radio call from a sheriff’s deputy who said he was in the area and would be there within minutes.  Then Officer Cody chimed in.

“Hey, Garrett.  Found Trudy at the bingo hall.  Your instincts were right; she did see Margaret Nielsen a couple times in town recently.  Last time was yesterday.”

Garrett got on and asked, “Does she know where she’s staying?”

“No, but she says she did call a couple by the name of Koestler.  Jack and Lillian.  You know them?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know them.  She told them Margaret was in town, huh?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Alright.  Thanks, Kid.”  Garrett clicked off the mic and placed it back in its cradle.

“Who are Jack and Lillian Koestler?” Mike asked.

“Well, Jack used to be on the force here.  Lilly was a psych nurse in Omaha.  They were the Nielsen’s neighbors.  I think Lilly also took Clara under her wing, given her occupation and all.”

“Psych nurse?  Where’d she work?” Steve asked from the back seat.

“The psych hospital down there.  I don’t know the name, but it’s the only one in Omaha.”

Steve slammed his fist down on the seat.  Mike wasn’t sure if it was from frustration or happiness.

“If Jack and Lilly know Margaret is in town, they’ll know where she is now,” Garrett added.

“Then let’s go see them!” Steve said.  “They live in Bennington?”

Garrett shook his head.  “Not anymore.  They moved to a bigger town called Atlantic.”

Mike felt like Garrett’s tone was suggesting that he was leaving something out.  “And just how far away is Atlantic?”

“Not far...not far.  Depends on your definition of far really.”

“Is it in Nebraska?”

Garrett paused before admitting it was not.  “It’s over in Iowa.”

“Iowa.  That’s just what, 30 minutes away at the most?  How far could it be?  Is Atlantic on the other side of the river?” Steve inquired.

“Yeah, but then it’s an hour east of there.”

“Oh,” Mike sighed.

“That’s it?  Just an hour?!  My girlfriend’s life is at stake and you two are acting like we have to drive back to California!  I don’t care if they live in Canada - we’re going!” Steve shouted.

“He’s right,” Garrett agreed.  “They may be why we didn’t find her in the barn.”  He then turned around and looked at Steve.  “Margaret’s daughter is your girlfriend?”

“I know, I know, conflict of interest.  Can we just go?”

A Douglas County Sheriff’s car pulled up beside Chief Garrett’s cruiser.  Garrett assured Steve that they would head across the border just as soon as he filled in the newly-arrived deputy.  He got out of the car, informed the man of what may have happened in the barn recently, that he found a gun that may have been used in a homicide from 1940, and that if they found anything valuable to call his office right away.  He then climbed back into his car and began the journey to Iowa while Steve said a silent prayer that the search was about to finally end.


	39. Chapter 39

**_Sunday, May 26, 1974_ **

Amy woke up and found only Tim in the room.  He was sitting in a chair in the corner reading a magazine.

"Have you been awake all night?" she asked him.

"I did doze off for a while.  How do you feel?" he asked, closing the magazine and looking up at her.

"Oh, alright I suppose.  Sadly, I've gotten used to the labored breathing and not being able to lay any other way but on my back, but it's still exhausting.  However, I laid awake half the night running scenarios over in my head.  Will she be able to find me here?  Where did she go?  If you guys are right and Steve is still alive, is she after him?  I wish I had been more conscious when Jack and Lilly found me so I knew how much Mom knew."

"How'd they find you?  I was under the impression that they didn't know you."

"They didn't.  No, oddly enough, I have a small town gossip to thank for my rescue."

Tim chuckled.  "I'd love to hear that story...if you'd be up to telling it.  I don't wanna press.  I mean, we barely know each other."

Amy grinned.  "To be honest, my own boyfriend and I barely know each other."  She paused.  "Tell you what.  I'll tell you what I remember about the rescue if you tell me about your story."

"My story?"

"How you know Mike Stone.  It is a small world after all.”

“Are you going to ask me about not being a cop?”

“Maybe.  I don’t have to tell Karen anything.  And I won’t judge.”  She glanced around the room.  “Did she leave?”

“She was getting crabby, so I made Ben take her back to the hotel.”

“About not calling the cops?”

Tim nodded.  “I know it probably sounds stupid, especially considering I can’t find either one of them, but I really believe that Mike and Steve have this completely under control.  If we figured out you were here, then they will too.  That means that Mike would have already contacted the authorities here to be on the lookout for you two.”

“You really think so?” Amy asked skeptically.

“I do.  Very little gets past Mike Stone.  He may not get here the same way we did, but does it matter?”

Amy shook her head.  “But if that's the case, then how come no one's found me here?  They'd check hospitals, wouldn't they?  They always do on TV."

Tim smirked and stood up.  "They'd be looking for someone named Amy Johnson, right?"

She nodded but gave him a confused look.

He grabbed the chart off the end of the bed and flipped it open.  "They're not looking for an Amy Koestler."

Amy snickered.  "I was unconscious when I got here, so they admitted me as Amy Koestler.  I dunno why unless Jack and Lilly were trying to throw Mom off.  I had the hospital change it a few days ago."

Putting the chart back, Tim said, "Good thing you did or we wouldn't have found you."

Amy looked in his eyes.  "You're right.  I almost didn't, because I figured, who cares?  I just wanna die anyway."

"I hope you don't still feel that way."

She shrugged.  "It comes and goes."

He went back to his chair and sat down.  "So...tell me whatever you want.  You can leave out anything you don't want to talk about."

"I get to go first, huh?"  She sighed.  "I was in this barn somewhere.  I later found out it was outside of Bennington on an abandoned farm.  All these years, I grew up thinking my mother was a native Californian.  Turns out she was raised in Nebraska, and she brought me out here to make a new life!  Swell, huh?  Couldn't keep me at home in California, so she brought me to the middle of nowhere probably figuring I'd either get lost trying to get back home, or I'd just give up and die of small town boredom.  

"Anyway, I'd been in this barn for what seemed like a year. I had lost all track of time...I barely knew day from night.  I was sicker than I think I've ever been...I was in a ton of pain.  It was hot, and Mom didn't give me a lot to eat or drink."

"Why?  Was she trying to kill you?  Karen made it sound like she kidnapped you more to get you away from Steve."

Amy nodded.  "She was.  Cutting off food and water was her way of punishing me for not agreeing to her demands."  Tears began escaping from the corners of her eyes.

Tim figured whatever the demands were, they were pretty painful, so he decided not to ask for specifics.  "What happened then?" was all he said.

"I'd done a damn good job keeping my sanity, my hopes up.  But I was so miserable by then that I was at the point of just closing my eyes and hoping whatever I'd caught would kill me.  I kept losing consciousness anyway; I wouldn't have even known.

"But then I heard people outside.  I could tell it wasn't Mom because I heard them talking about how to get in the barn.  They came in, found me, told me who they were and that they were there to rescue me.  They didn't even know who I was."

"This was the Koestlers?"

Amy nodded.  "Even after all these years, they still felt somewhat responsible for my mom, so when the Bennington town gossip saw Mom at the local grocery store, she called Jack and Lilly right away.  They drove all the way from Iowa to find out what was going on."

"That was good for you."

"Oh yeah.  If it weren't for them...anyway," she muttered, changing the direction of the conversation.  "After they told me who they were, and I told them who I was, they tried to get me out of there, but Mom came.  I kept drifting in and out of sleep at that point, so I really don’t know what they discussed.  Next thing I knew, I was waking up in a hospital bed hooked up to a hundred wires and tubes.

“Jack and Lilly had to explain who they were all over again, and I explained to them how I’d ended up in Nebraska.  They swore to me that she had no idea where I was, and that she would not bother me again.  I have no idea how they pulled that off - they wouldn’t say.  But if she wants to find me...she will.  She made it pretty clear that it was him or her, and if I didn’t choose her…”

“Him or her...you mean Steve or her?  She’s making you choose one or the other?”

Amy sadly nodded.  “There’s no gray area...and someone will die.”

Tim shook his head.  “I can’t believe she would hate a man she doesn’t even know so much that she could kill him.  I mean, why does she even hate him as much as she does?”

“Because now she has no power over me.  She really didn’t before, but since I was single and not really tied down to anything in San Francisco, she figured she could manipulate me into coming home and taking care of her.  You see, my life never mattered to her.  I was born so my mother could use me.  If she was lonely and my dad wasn’t around, I was suddenly her best friend.  I can’t even tell you how many times she’d make me feel bad for wanting to go off and play with friends or something.  I missed a lot of sleepovers because my mother didn’t want to be alone. She’d tell me this sob story and...well, what could I do?  I was eight.  But if she was busy kissing up to her theater friends, or if she had managed to keep my dad around and away from work, it was like I didn’t exist.

“She also used me to look like the world’s best mother.  Anytime we were around others, she’d tell me to make sure I smiled a lot and looked happy, because she wanted those people to adore her, and no one adores a woman who has an unhappy family.”

“All about appearances, huh?”

“Yeah.  She had to have the adoration of everyone around her, and if I could get it for her…  Once I’d done my job though, it was as if I barely existed.  She’d go off for months at a time, touring around the country in one production or another.  Did it matter that she had a family to take care of?  Nope, not with fan adoration.  The only people who mattered were the audience members.

“But then that all dried up for some reason, and my dad died.  I was the only one left to give her any attention, but by that time, I was trying to get away from her and make my own life.  The minute I went to San Francisco without a thought to what she wanted, I betrayed her.”

Tim shook his head.  “Most of the time when kids leave the nest, their parents are excited about their futures.  My folks were worried when I moved back to San Francisco, but they were glad that they’d raised me to be an independent, successful man.”

“But your parents are sane.  Mine is codependent.  My moving away was basically a slap in her face.  I should have just said, ‘Mother, I no longer love you.  Please die.’  However, she refused to give up, using all the same guilt trips she’d been using on me my whole life in an effort to get me to move home.  But you know what?  I finally wised up.  It’s my turn to live my life the way I want, right?  Everyone deserves that!”

“So how did Steve change her tactics?”

“For some reason, her logic states that I can only love one person, and naturally, that person should be her.  I chose Steve.  He'll keep me in San Francisco, he'll poison me against her, he'll steal me away and she'll never see me again...and that cannot happen.  No one does that to Margaret Johnson.  As long as I'm determined to stay with Steve, she'll be determined to punish me for it.  A marionette can't clip its strings."

Tears ran down Amy's cheeks, and she quickly wiped them away with her good hand.  Tim stood up, grabbed a tissue, and handed it to her.

She took it and thanked him, which was immediately followed by an apology.

"Don't be sorry.  Actually, your mother reminds me of mine."  He took a seat on the edge of her bed.

Amy gave him a doubtful look, so he clarified.  "Not the woman who raised me, the one who gave birth to me.  She used me as a tool too, only her needs were a bit different."

"How so?"

"Your mom craves admiration?  Mine craved drugs, and she used me to get them."

"Don't tell me she made you buy them for her or something?" Amy asked, disgusted at the thought.

Tim shook his head.  "I was too young for that.  Instead, she used me as payment...or at least tried."

Amy’s mouth dropped open.  “She tried to trade you for drugs?  Damn!  That makes my mom look like a saint.”

He snickered.  “Yeah, in a way.  But that bad act saved me from a lifetime of pain.  If she hadn’t been so desperate, Mike never would have taken me in and gotten me a family that cared.”

“So, how’d it all happen?”

“Well, I don’t remember much; I was only two at the time.  But Mike and his partner were staking out a drug dealer, caught my mom trying to give me to him for heroin, and took me away from her.  I never saw her again.  My parents don’t really talk about her, and neither does Mike.  I don’t even know if she’s still alive.”

“Do you ever get curious?”

Tim shrugged.  “Occasionally, but not often.  I know I had it better off with my parents anyway.  I would have had it good with Mike and Helen too.”

“Are you saying that Mike and his wife almost adopted you?”

“Yeah.  Didn’t happen, but Mike knew the Slaters from the neighborhood and knew they were looking to adopt.”

“So that’s why you’ve been in touch with him all these years - you’re all like family.”

Tim nodded.  “He’s always been like an uncle.  When I initially talked about skipping college, moving back to San Francisco, and going to the academy, he was the first to encourage me.  My folks were hesitant, but somehow he managed to persuade them.”

Amy smiled.  “He seems like a very persuasive guy.  So what happened?  Why are you a physical therapist now instead of an officer?”

“I got injured and couldn’t stay at the academy,” he answered abruptly.

“Are you better now?”

Tim nodded again.

“So...what’s holding you back?”

He said nothing, and Amy didn’t want to push.  She knew all too well what fear looked and felt like.

“I have an idea,” she said quietly.  “I want to prove that my mother is behind all these cold cases I’ve been reading about, but, well, I don’t really think like a cop, and there isn’t a lot I can do from this bed anyway.  You probably think more like an investigator...and I could use a leg man, so to speak.  No pressure...but I really would like your help.”

She thought if she could get him involved in some police work that did not come along with any real pressure, maybe the spark for the job would relight.  Plus, she really did want another pair of eyes looking over the little evidence she had against her mother.  Someone had to believe that she was on to something and not just trying to pin something on a woman who had ruined her life.

Tim stood up and looked over at the pile of newspapers.  “Karen told me about all this.  You really think your mother is connected to some homicides you read about in the newspaper?”

Amy nodded.  “All the victims in those articles...Mom mentioned them in her journals.”

“Journals?”

“Yeah...early on, before I got sick and too weak, I’d get up the best I could on one leg and look around for an escape.  The door and windows were all boarded up or locked from the inside, so I started looking for any hole I could squeeze through.  Never found one, but I did find a stash of books hidden under a floorboard.  They were old journals my mom kept when she was a teenager.  She must have used that barn as a hiding spot or something.

“Anyway, the stuff she wrote about in these journals...she mentioned all the people who would eventually die in mysterious circumstances...and it was usually how much she hated them!  It can’t be a coincidence.”

“Did she specifically write that she’d killed anyone?”

Amy shook her head.  “No, but if you read what she wrote, and then read the details of the cases, it seems likely.”

Tim took the newspapers over to his chair and sat down.  “Can I see the journals?”

Amy sighed.  “They’re still in the barn.  I kept them hidden so Mom didn’t know I’d found them.”

“And since you were unconscious…”

“Yeah,” she replied sadly.  “I hope she doesn’t remember they were there.”

Tim glanced out the window at the dreary spring day.  “Maybe later, if it stops raining, I can head out and find them.  You have any idea where this barn is?”

“No, but Jack and Lilly do.  When they come back to town, they can show you.  “I’m not sure if they’re coming tonight or tomorrow."

Just then, a young intern came in and greeted the pair.  “Sorry we couldn’t make the weather better for you Californians.  I bet you’re already wanting to get back to the sunny beaches.”

“It is a bit different than LA, that’s for sure,” Tim said.

The doctor turned to his patient.  “Well, I think we can make that happen sooner rather than later.”

Amy looked at him nervously.  “What do you mean?”

“Well, I’ve been looking over your charts, looking at test results, and I think that you’re well enough to recuperate at home instead of here.  Your outlook on life is even better than it has been, which has helped you heal more than you probably realize.  I think you can head home tomorrow.”

Her eyes darted back and forth from Tim to her doctor.  “I...I can’t leave.  I still have pneumonia...my knee...what about my lung?”

The doctor rested a hand on her shoulder.  “You’ll be fine.  The pneumonia is no longer contagious, and the symptoms are easily managed at home.  Your knee just needs some physical therapy, and we will contact therapists back home for you if you’d like.  As for your lung, it’s healing nicely.  There’s nothing more we can do for it; you just have to let it heal on its own.”

“But it still hurts when I raise my arm or when I breathe…”

“And it will for a few more weeks.  I’ll prescribe you some light pain meds if it gets too bothersome.  Your breathing is fine...all you really need to do is take it easy, which will be much more comfortable at home.”

Amy had a panic-stricken look on her face.  “But…” she muttered.

Tim looked at the doctor.  “Can we have a minute?”

The doctor smiled.  “Sure thing.  I’ll talk to the nurses about getting your paperwork started and getting you ready for home care.”

“Thanks,” Tim said as the young man left the room.  He then looked at Amy.  “What’s wrong?  Most people are thrilled to get out of the hospital.” 

“But what if you’re right?  What if Steve is alive, and he and Mike are on their way here?  If I go back home, they’ll never find me!  And who’s gonna protect me from my mother?  I’m safe in here; I won’t be out there!”

She started breathing heavily.  “Okay, okay...calm down.  All this breathing is just going to hurt.  Deep breaths.”

Amy attempted to calm down, which she did only slightly.

“Look, as far as protection, someone will always be with you.  We can also go to the Omaha police and let them know.  I’m sure they know about you anyway.  Also, if Mike and Steve do get here after you’re released, they’ll know you’re safe and back in California.  Really, it will be fine.  No one’s gonna let anything happen to you.  Promise.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.  Say, why don’t I get on that phone right now and call the OPD.  Maybe they’ve already heard from Mike or Steve.  Maybe they have a line on your mother.  Just don’t worry, okay?  The journey is almost over.”

Amy just nodded as she watched Tim pick up the phone and talk to the operator.  She wished she believed there really was a light at the end of the tunnel.


	40. Chapter 40

**_Sunday, May 26, 1974_ **

To Steve, the drive to Iowa seemed a lot longer than an hour even though he could see Chief Garrett was driving far more than the posted speed limit of 55 mph.  He was anxious to finally lay eyes on Amy, and with each passing mile, his nerves became a little more frayed.  In an attempt to distract his agitated mind, he tried listening to the conversation Mike and Garrett were having in the front seat, but it was almost strictly about baseball - the Giants and the Yankees - and it bored him to death.  There was no music to listen to, and the squeaking of the windshield wipers as they flicked away the rain grated on his nerves.    

To avoid absolutely losing his mind, he decided to read through the diaries he had stuffed in his pockets.  Amy seemed vehement about him reading them anyway, and now was as good a time as any.  He pulled them all out and laid them on the seat next to him.  They looked the same - nondescript brown leather covers that had typical wear and tear.  One did not stand out from the others as the one he should start with, so he chose the one that was teetering on the edge of the seat.  He didn’t want it falling to the wet car floor if it was full of some kind of evidence.  

He gathered up the other two - which included the one with Amy’s note - and put them back in his coat.  He then opened the chosen diary and, instead of starting at page one, aimlessly flipped through the pages.  This allowed him to notice that somewhere in the middle of the book, the handwriting changed.  Flipping back and forth, he was able to find the exact page where it changed from scrawled, quickly-written chicken scratching to printing that was neater and more modern.  It was Amy’s writing - the same as in the note.  

He flipped through the remainder of the diary.  It was almost full, and it was all in Amy’s handwriting.  Figuring she wrote to keep herself entertained or distracted, he went back to the first page of hers and began reading.   _ Maybe she left some clues behind _ , he thought.

_ Day 1: _

_ Well, not really day 1.  I’ve been here...I don’t know...2 days?  I think I’ve slept through two darknesses.  Or maybe I didn’t.  I’m all alone here and scared to death.  Hard to sleep through that.  I’m trying to keep track of the days in case I’m here so long I forget who I am or something.  Why did I just think that?  Great, now I’m going to make myself cry again.  I want out of here, Steve.   _

The paper underneath the paragraph was wrinkled where Amy’s now dried tears had fallen.  Steve felt like he too would start crying, especially since she was writing her thoughts directly to him.  

_ Anyway...for some reason, I fear losing my mind, so I thought since there were empty pages in the back of this diary, I would write out...things.  Maybe you’ll find them after I’m gone.  But you know what?  Despite everything, I am going to do my best to not let that happen.  I’m not going to let her get the best of me.  I am determined to fight, honest I am.  For you and for Jasmine.  You two are the reasons I have to live. _

Steve bit his lip in an effort to keep his emotions at bay.  Never before in his life had anyone told him that he was their reason for living.  It was such a deep and serious statement that had it come from anyone else at any other time in his life, it would have scared him to death.  But now, coming from Amy, he could have melted from the warmth and love he felt inside.  He just prayed it wasn’t already too late for them.    

_ Um, so...I guess I could describe this hellhole I’m being held in.  It’s a barn, probably in the middle of nowhere.  Hell, I don’t even know what state I’m in.  I’ve gotten up and dragged myself around the place a little looking for an escape (which is how I found these diaries - they were buried under a floorboard).  Seriously, for a barn that’s been abandoned and left to rot, this place is closed up tight.  All the windows are painted over for some reason, there aren’t any holes in the walls big enough to squeeze through...I tried digging through the floor, but I got too tired.  Margaret (I refuse to ever call her Mom again) has me locked in otherwise.   _

_ I had all these dreams of escaping and running off through the fields I assume are surrounding the place, but who am I kidding?  I can’t escape on one leg.  She’d find me for sure.  All I can do is pray you find me.  I better hide this before she comes back. _

“Looks like Margaret didn’t stay with her,” Steve said aloud to the men in the front seat.

Mike, interrupting his explanation of why he insisted the 49ers were going all the way next season, turned and looked curiously at his partner.  “What makes you say that?”

“Amy pretty much said it,” he told Mike without looking up.  “She wrote some things down in one of the journals.”

“Oh.  That could be a very good sign,” Mike added optimistically.  “Anything helpful?”

“Just started.  I’ll let you know,” he answered as he turned the page.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

_ Day 2: _

_ People complain about the constant noise in the city.  You know what?  The silence in the country is worse.  Way worse.  Sure, I suppose it’s good for sleeping if you can actually fall asleep, but I don’t know how anyone could with the god-awful horrifying noises out there.  It sounds like wolves killing each other.  God...it could be wolves!  Or bears.  Do we have lions in America?   _

_ It almost makes me wish Margaret was here.  Almost.  Most of the time I just want to spit in her face.  It’s just that...I’m pretty much stuck in this bed.  The first two days, when I got up to look for escapes, I ended up hurting my knee and wrist more.  Plus my ribs are killing me.  I feel better if I just lay here.  I have my leg propped up though, just like they told me in the hospital.  And I wiggle my toes a lot for blood flow or whatever.  It just...hurts.  A lot sometimes.  I try to sleep it off since I have nothing else to do, but a person can only sleep so long. _

_ I miss you.  I hope you miss me. _

“I do miss you,” Steve whispered softly enough so no one would hear.  “More than you’ll ever believe.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~

_ Day 2 again: _

_ It’s raining I think.  There’s water coming in from the roof.  Fortunately not over my bed.  I got up and took a makeshift shower in it though.  I feel gross.  It gets hot in here.  And I am sick to death of peeing in a bucket!  Margaret is fucking insane to put her only child through this!  But I will NOT do what she wants.  NO WAY.  I’ll die before I do that. _

The paragraph stopped there.   _ Do what? _ Steve wondered.  He then worried that her stubbornness regarding her mother may have gotten her killed.

_ So in addition to writing my daily thoughts and musings, I thought of another way to keep busy and not go insane: write down song lyrics I can remember.  Music has always been an outlet for me when things got stressful.  Long time ago, when I realized I had a talent for singing, I started doing it more frequently for two reasons: I liked it and it made me happy, and my mother thought she could use it to her advantage, so she pushed me into it.  She always thought of herself as Streisand for some reason.  More like Tiny Tim.  Anyway, I know a lot of songs, so maybe I can make the day go by faster if I have sort of a radio going on in my head.  I'd prefer an actual radio, but you know, a DJ might tell me where I am.  Heaven forbid. _

_ What to sing...songs that mean something.  I know.  We Gotta Get Out of This Place.  Let’s see if I can remember all the lyrics. _

Steve snickered as he read - and sang to himself - the lyrics to The Animals hit “We Gotta Get Out of This Place.”   _ At least she’s keeping a sense of humor _ , he thought.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

_ Day 3: _

_ I’ve been laying here thinking about what day it might be.  It was April 29th when Margaret kidnapped me...I think.  I wonder if I got here the same day?  I remember waking up and talking to that lawyer my dad worked with, but everything else is a blur.  Well...maybe today is the 3rd?  May 3rd.  That would help if it was because then I could keep my days the same as the date.  I hope you find me soon.  I’m sure she didn’t make it easy, but you and Mike are smart and persistent. _

_ Smart huh?  Is that why it's taken me a month to find you?  _ he thought. _  Yeah, I'm real smart. _

_ It’s raining again, so I thought of this song for today: I’ll Follow the Sun.  It’s sunny in San Francisco I bet, and if I ever get free, I’ll follow the sun back to you, Steve. _

He read the lyrics to The Beatles “I’ll Follow the Sun,” but they made him sad.  They also made her sad, for after the lyrics she added:

_ Sorry about that.  I forgot that song is more sad than happy.  I don’t want you to follow the sun.  :( _

_ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ _

_ Night 3: _

_ Almost night again.  I can barely see what I’m writing.  There’s an owl outside.  I was kind of hoping for a carrier pigeon who could bring me some aspirin, but no such luck.  I’ve begged Margaret for some, but she’ll only give them to me if I give in to her one demand.  I’d rather die. _

_ I’ve been thinking of songs all day.  I now have a decent list to play at a wedding reception.  You know, when the DJ plays mushy love songs and the only people who dance are the bride and groom.  Do you know, I really don’t like weddings?  Well, none that I’ve been to anyway.  They’re just expensive ways for the bride and groom to show off to everyone and make their single friends and relatives feel bad...and poor.  My parents should have never gotten married.  No one should.  Love is fine without vows.  Margaret hates that attitude but look how she ruins everything.   _

From there, she listed the lyrics to half a dozen love songs, including “A Groovy Kind of Love” by The Mindbenders, “Can’t Help Falling in Love” and “The Wonder of You” by Elvis Presley, “Sea of Love” by Phil Phillips, “Only You” by The Platters, and “If” by Bread.

_ I think these songs could all be us...be ours.  In my head, I’m going to dance with you like we did on our first date.  I hope we get a second. _

_ So do I, Babe.  So do I _ , he thought.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

_ Day 4: _

_ I’m hungry.  Margaret used to bring me food three times a day, but now it’s just two.  Breakfast and dinner.  She’s punishing me.  She’s also cutting my liquids.  Well, she used to bring me bottles of soda, but now it’s just lukewarm water.  I also think she got tired of dumping the bucket.  Her fault.   _

_ I’ve done so many crossword puzzles.  Margaret brings me the paper every day.  Well, she brings me certain sections.  Nothing local.  I mean, I’m reading a paper, and I don’t even know where it’s from.  I could scream.  She does leave me the crossword puzzle and a pencil though - that’s how I’m able to write in here in case you were wondering.   _

_ It hurts to breathe too much.  I guess my lung isn’t healing after all.  I need to sing.  I need to think about you and Jasmine.  If I could sing at the top of my lungs without it killing me, I would.  Maybe someone would hear.  Maybe Lassie is outside ready to rescue me.   _

Amy followed this with lyrics to several more songs she felt were indicative of her and Steve’s relationship such as “Cherish” by The Association, “So In Love” by The Tymes, “Make it With You” by Bread, and “I Need You” by America.   

All Steve could do was be glad that she was still healthy enough to write and think positively, especially about him.  

~~~~~~~~~~~~

_ Day 5:  _

_ You know, I think I’m off days.  I’ve been here longer than a week...I swear.  I don’t know.  My mind is getting kind of cloudy.  I try sleeping through it, but even though I feel terrible, I can’t sleep 24 hours a day. _

_ I’ve had a headache since yesterday, so now my head and lungs hurt.  I feel warm too, though it’s kind of warm in this barn.  Dusty too.  I keep trying to remember to lift my leg and wiggle my toes.  God...what if gangrene sets in?  That would be my luck.   _

_ Where are you?  I thought you'd be here by now. _

_ There it is,  _ he thought.   _ I knew she'd start hating me for not finding her.   _

Steve closed his eyes and let his mind berate him for all the things he felt he had done wrong in the last month.  He grieved too long, he drank too much, he believed too many lies, and overlooked too many clues.   _ I truly am the world's worst detective...and boyfriend. _

_ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ _

_ Day 6: _

_ She messed up.  For some reason she was in a hurry, so when she brought me breakfast...well, if you can call one apple a breakfast...anyway, she left the whole paper here.  Omaha.  I’m somewhere around Omaha.  I wonder how far Omaha’s paper goes?  All the way west?  I guess I could be anywhere in Nebraska.  Now I wish I had the energy to find a phone, but it hurts to even move.  And now I have this cough.  Probably all the dust.  I ate the apple.  I tried to eat it slowly to make it last all day, but it got brown too quick.  I hope she brings me dinner.  She didn’t last night.  I told her I’d die before I did what she asked.  I may make good on that.   _

_ Steve...one of us will die before this is over.  I know it. _

Steve slammed the book shut.  Deep down, he knew her head was in a bad place, but that was too much to read.  He had to take a deep breath and a moment to calm himself enough to read the rest of Amy’s entries.  It took a bit of time considering that his brain now had Amy dying and Margaret living on a constant loop.  Fortunately, neither Mike nor Garrett were paying him any attention as they were once again engrossed in sports talk.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

_ Day...some day after May 9th: _

_ She did it.  I don’t know how, but she did it.  I thought maybe she was lying about it to try and get me to give you up, but it’s in  _ The Chronicle _ , so it has to be real.  She must have hired a hitman.  I thought maybe she already blew through all Dad’s money, but hitman aren’t cheap.   _

_ MY OWN MOTHER HAD THE GUTS TO HIRE A DAMN HITMAN!!  WHAT KIND OF PSYCHO HIRES A HITMAN TO COMMIT A ROBBERY JUST TO BAIT A COP?!  WHY DIDN’T SHE JUST KILL ME?!?!  Bitch might as well have...I have nothing left to live for now.  The only reason to stick around is to watch her burn in hell...literally.  I wonder if anything in this barn can start a fire… _

“What the hell is she talking about?” Steve muttered under his breath.  “Margaret hired a hitman?”  

Then the mood changed drastically.  It was almost as if the paragraph following had been written by a completely different person. 

_ Why?  Whhhhhhyyyyyyy?!  Why did it have to be you?  This world is full of murderers and psychos and rapists...and they’re all still alive.  Why did she have to kill you?  You didn’t do anything wrong, Steve...why did you have to die?? _

Steve couldn’t move.  He read and reread the last few sentences before it completely sank in that somehow Amy had gotten the idea that he was no longer among the living - and it was Margaret’s fault.  Now all he could see was red.  Not only did this woman kidnap her own child, but now she was psychologically manipulating the woman when she was already in a highly fragile state.  Had Margaret done all this to anyone else, he would have been angry and wanting to do everything in his power to put the woman away for good.  However, since it was Amy, he preferred to put the woman into the ground instead, and it was going to take a lot of self-control to remain professional.   

~~~~~~~~~~~~

_ Day…?: _

_ I don’t know.  I give up.  Who the hell am I even talking to now?  I’m just laying here waiting to die.  It might come quicker than planned fortunately.  I think I caught something.  Cold, flu...I dunno.  I can’t breathe, I get hot and then cold, this cough is getting so bad that my whole torso is killing me.  It’s taking me a long time just to write this.   You know...if I had a weapon, I’d kill her first.  I want to watch her die.  I hate her more than anyone I’ve ever known.   _

_ I wish I knew where she goes every time she leaves.  She’s gone for so long.  Yesterday, she didn’t even come.  How can I confront her for killing you if she never comes back?  How can I kill her?  _

_ Oh no, you’re not dying on me _ , Steve said to himself as he quickly turned the page to make sure Amy had more to say.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

_ Day Something: _

_ I feel like death.  I’m afraid it’s going to me going instead of her.  Proves that life isn’t fair.   _

_ The newspapers...there was an article about murders that haven’t been solved.  The names they mentioned...they’re in here.  In these books.  Margaret has been a murderer since the 1940’s.  I’m gonna be her next victim. _

_ This one is for Jasmine.  Wherever you are, Baby...I hope you have a better life than the one you started with.  Always remember that I loved you like you were my own daughter.  _

Amy followed this with the lyrics to the song the two were dancing to in Steve’s kitchen on Jasmine’s first night with them - “Pretty Ballerina” by The Left Banke.

The short memory brought a brief smile to his face, but it quickly faded as Steve read the little that remained of Amy’s journaling.

_ Hello to whoever finds this.  This is my goodbye post.  I can’t do this much longer.  I hurt all over, I’m burning up...unless I get a miracle, I don’t think my body will hold out much longer.  All I have the strength to do is cry, but I haven’t had anything to drink in a couple days, so I can’t even do much of that.  Please, whatever happens...DON’T LET HER WIN.  Please.  Get Margaret Johnson. _

_ See you in Heaven, Steven Keller.   _

No songs followed the last entry, which looked like Amy barely had the strength to write.  She simply signed the writing with a heart and a few x’s and o’s.  Steve slowly closed the book and his eyes and said a prayer to anyone who would listen that Amy was alive and Margaret was nowhere near her.   _ It just can’t end this way _ , he thought.   _ You can’t give me everything I’ve ever wanted and then take it away a week later.  You just can’t. _


	41. Chapter 41

**_Sunday, May 26, 1974_ **

Not long after Steve had read Amy’s last entry, he looked up and noticed that they were pulling into a driveway.  The rain had stopped, and the sun was trying its hardest to poke through the dense cloud cover.  Steve chose to take this as a sign that he was about to get good news.  Maybe all he had to do was follow the sun.

As the three men piled out of the car and stretched, the front door of the house opened.  An older man with thick gray hair and a bit of a pot belly stepped onto the concrete steps.

“Garrett!  What on earth brings you all the way out here?” he exclaimed.

Garrett approached the man and shook his hand.  “Wish I could say this was a social call, Jack, but we need your help with something.”

An older woman, her graying brown hair pinned up, stepped just outside the front door.  “This is about Margaret, isn’t it?”

Everyone turned and looked at her.

“It is, isn’t it?”  She looked straight at Garrett.  “Did Trudy call you?  Is Margaret back in Bennington?  I called her and told her to call you immediately if she saw her in town again.”  The fear in the woman’s voice was obvious to everyone.

Garrett shrugged.  “We haven’t seen her.  You don’t know where she is?”

“We...uh...no, we don’t.  We had her staying here to keep her away from Amy, but she snuck out on us while were were at our grandson’s birthday party a couple days ago.  We’ve been looking all over Atlantic for her, but so far nothing,” Jack explained to Garrett before looking over at the two strangers.

“Oh, sorry.  Jack, Lilly, this is Lieutenant Mike Stone from the San Francisco Police and…”

Lilly walked down the steps and made a beeline for Steve.  “Please tell me you’re Steve,” she asked quickly before Garrett could introduce him formally.

The question blindsided him, but he recovered quickly and nodded.  “Yes, Ma’am.  Steve Keller, Lieutenant Stone’s partner.  How do you know me?”

“You’re all she talked about...both of them.  Though in vastly different lights.”  Lilly, giving no cares to the fact that she literally just met the man, threw her arms around him as if he were a long-lost relative.  “She is so convinced that you’re dead.  My GOD, am I glad it was all a lie.”

Mike looked at his partner, befuddled.  “Dead?”

Lilly pulled out of the embrace.  “Amy thinks he’s dead!  I tried telling her that it was all something her mother made up to manipulate her, but she wouldn’t listen.  I suppose I would have a hard time believing someone I’d just met as well.”

Steve looked at Mike and explained further.  “Margaret gave her an apparently fake issue of _The Chronicle_ that said I was dead - killed in a robbery.  She wrote it all down in that journal I was reading on the way here.”

Before Mike had a chance to say anything, Steve looked right in Lilly’s eyes and impatiently asked, “So Amy’s alive?  Is she okay?  Is she here?”

Lilly smiled, glad that she was able to relieve the tension she could see in Steve’s eyes.  “She’s fine, but she’s not here.  She’s in a hospital in Omaha.”

Steve looked at Mike.  “We were close the entire time!”

“And we would have found her sooner if Holloway hadn’t intercepted our communications to the Omaha PD.  Does Margaret know where she is?” Mike asked, looking at both Koestlers.

Lilly shook her head.  “Not unless she found out some other way.  We certainly didn’t tell her.  I don’t want that woman anywhere near her ever again!  Do you know what she was doing to her?!”

“Well, we saw where she was holding her,” Garrett answered.  “Didn’t look like paradise.”

“Margaret was starving her to death,” Steve said quietly.  “That’s another thing she wrote in those diaries.”

Lilly nodded.  “I shouldn’t be surprised, not after the life she had...but I never thought she was homicidal.”  She choked on her last few words.

“How did you all manage to link her to us?” Jack asked.

Between Garrett and Mike, the two gave a truncated version of the month’s activities to the two confused Iowans.  As the story went on, they both looked more horrified by each detail.

“This is so sad,” Lilly muttered.  “I knew she wasn’t normal, but I honestly never thought she had the know how to pull something like that off.  Clara is rolling over in her grave.”

“Look, I’d love to stand here and get more pieces to add to this ever-growing puzzle, but a dangerous woman is out there, and I’m not sure how well-protected her target is at the moment.  The woman managed to kidnap her from one hospital already; let’s not make it two,” Steve said.

“You’re right.”  Mike patted Steve on the shoulder.  “We should head back to Omaha as soon as possible.”

Garrett turned to his old friend.  “Can I use your phone?  I’m going to call Omaha PD and have them be on the lookout for Margaret.  They might be willing to send someone to the hospital as well to keep an eye on Amy.”

Jack nodded.  “I have an idea.  Lil, why don’t you drive these gentlemen to the hospital.  Garrett and I will come along soon.”

She gave her husband a worried look, as if she were wondering if his idea was a safe one.

“They’re cops, Hun.  You’re well-protected.  Everything will be fine.”  

She nodded and had Mike and Steve follow her to a 1972 gold Buick LeSabre that was parked on the left side of the double driveway.  Mike thought Lilly looked a tad nervous, so he offered to drive - an offer she accepted immediately.  She got in the front next to Mike, and Steve once again took the back.  Mike pulled the car out of the drive and headed back the way they had just come.

To ease her nerves, Lilly started making small talk with the two, asking them both how they came to be police officers (adding her own anecdotes about being a former cop's wife) and how they liked living in San Francisco.  She then asked Steve how he met Amy.  Though reluctant at first, he found it very easy and calming talking about the bizarre way they met and fell for each other.  It felt good to talk about her outside the confines of the case.  She was more than just one of his and Mike's typical victims - bodies without histories.  Amy was a live, loving woman, and telling a complete stranger about her made him love her even more.  He just needed everything to end so the two could actually start living.  

Lilly smiled, finding the whole romance sweet.  She told him that even though she had just met Amy, she really liked the girl and hoped that after the whole Margaret ordeal was over, they could get to know each other better.  She worried that Amy had little family to lean on after such an ordeal.  Steve assured her that he would be there for her through thick and thin.

"Oh, I can see that, but I was wondering more about her father's side of the family.  Is there anyone over there she's close to?"

Steve was quiet before he simply shrugged; he may have been madly in love with her, but knew nothing about her family...or her.  It was an issue he figured they would have solved by now.

Mike could see that the subject needed changing, so he asked Lilly how she and her husband came to be close with the Nielsen family.

“Well, small towns...everyone knows and cares for each other.  Everyone in town are your parents if you’re a kid, especially if your parents are like Clara and Leon.”  Lilly sighed.  "Those two girls didn't stand a chance in that family.  I knew bad things were in the cards from the moment they moved in a couple doors down.

"I took to the girls because I knew they didn't have it easy at home.  Being a psych nurse, I could tell right away that Clara had unresolved issues.  Sadly, I was right.  But I loved having the girls over.  I think I liked not being the only female in the house."  She snickered before adding, "I had two boys."

Mike joined in her laughter.  "I had one girl.  Sometimes I think it would have been nice to have another man in the house."

"Did Margaret take to you?" Steve asked Lilly.

She sorrowfully shook her head.  "Part of her was very resentful toward Jack and me.  I know she always felt like we were trying to take her away from her mother, or poison her against her.  I think toward the end though, she realized we were trying to help Clara, not hurt her.  She never trusted us though - still doesn’t.  We told her if she stayed away from Amy while she was in the hospital, we wouldn’t call the police.  Instead of believing us, she cut our phone line.  We just got it fixed two days ago...right before she disappeared."

“She knows how to cut a phone line?” Mike asked, skeptical.

Lilly shrugged.  “Her father was a pretty accomplished criminal.”

"What about Kaye?  Did she act like her sister?" Steve inquired.

“Not at all!  They were more different than night and day.  Kaye loved staying at our house.  The relief she felt being away from the Nielsen’s was palpable.  She was a normal, happy child.  She and my boys got along great.  We were so very upset when Margaret kidnapped her from their grandmother's house...the entire town searched for days.  No one thought they'd end up in California.  I often wonder why it came to that."

"I think she had that plan in mind for quite a while," Steve said.  "I doubt anyone could have stopped her."

Lilly nodded slightly in defeat.  Steve could tell the whole thing had been bothering her since 1943.

"How is Kaye?  She's not like her sister, is she?"

Steve shook his head.  "I really don't know her, but from what Amy has told me, Kaye was far more of a mother to her than Margaret was.  I think Amy turned out well because of her and her husband.  Maybe Kaye remembered what you did for her and did that with her niece."

Lilly smiled and thanked Steve for saying that.  Mike smiled at him via the rear view mirror.

There was a lull in the conversation until Lilly muttered, "I just don't know how she could have gotten very far.  The car she'd been driving was a rental, which we took back to the airport on our way home.  Both our cars were still there...and she was limping so much."

"Limping?" Mike asked.

"Amy told me that she attacked her at some time, right on the leg.  Her knee was swollen something awful, but she wouldn't let us take her to the doctor.  Distrust.  I'm sure she figured we'd turn her in while we were there."

Steve snickered.  "Would you have?"

"In a heartbeat."

* * *

After they had been on the interstate for a few miles, Lilly turned around and looked at Steve.  “You said something about Amy writing in a diary?”

Steve nodded.  “I found them under the mattress of that cot she must have slept on.  I think they were originally Margaret’s.  Amy said she found them under a floorboard.”

“Makes sense.  Margaret used to go to that barn to...I dunno...hide?  Plot?  Guess when she ran off to California, she forgot to take a few things with her.”

“The barn...is that how you found Amy?  You assumed Margaret would be there?”

“No.  After Trudy called us, Jack and I drove to Bennington and, well, sort of stalked her.  There are not a whole lot of places someone could be in that town, so we hit them all until we found her.  Then we followed her out to the barn.”

Steve took a deep breath and leaned forward, folding his arms over the top of the front seat.  He turned to Lilly and said, “I may regret this, but could you tell me the whole story of how you found her in the barn?  You know, how she looked, what she said…  In the diary, she sounded like she was sick and about to give up on life.”

He took another breath.  “I just...I just want to know where her mind was I guess.”

Lilly softly smiled at him.  “There really isn’t much to tell.  Where we first found Margaret was at the grocery store in town.  She seemed to be carrying an awful lot of bags for just one person, so Jack and I got suspicious.  We followed her to the barn, and she took in what looked like a gallon jug of water and some bananas.  This was highly suspect, but we didn’t want to confront her by ourselves out in the middle of nowhere.  Instead, we decided to stick around a few minutes to see if she would leave.  About ten minutes later, she came out without the bananas but did have the jug with her.  Figuring she wouldn’t leave the bananas if there was nothing in the barn, Jack and I then had to decide if we checked out the barn or followed Margaret.”

“You chose the barn,” Steve stated.

Lilly nodded.  “Glad we did.  It took us several minutes to find a way in though.  Jack eventually grabbed the tire iron from our trunk and smashed open a window.”

“Must have been the same window we used to get in,” Mike added.

“It was dark, and hot, and it smelled like...well, a barn I guess.  But worse somehow.  Imagine our disgust when we found a human living in those conditions!”

“Is living really the word you want to use?” Steve prompted.

He and Lilly locked eyes for a moment.  She simply bobbed her head once and moved on.  

“It took a bit to find Amy in the dark.  It was getting late in the day, and the sun had moved to the back of the barn.  She was also unconscious, so we couldn’t find her through sound.  When we finally did find her...”  She paused and looked down at her lap.

“You thought she was dead?” Steve suggested, his emotions not wavering since he knew it wasn’t true.

“She was so pale...and thin.  And her breathing was so shallow that I had to put my ear up to her mouth just to hear it.  Turns out she had pneumonia.  Plus she was trying to recover from lung surgery?”

“Broken rib punctured her lung,” Steve informed Lilly.

She shook her head.  “How did that happen?  And her leg and arm were broken?  She was wearing the casts when we found her.”

“She didn’t tell you what happened to her before?”  Steve found this odd, yet he understood Amy not opening up to strangers she wasn’t sure she could trust.

“No.  We’ve asked several times, but she never says a word.  Did Margaret do all that to her?”

“Not directly.  It’s a long story...did she wake up in the barn at all?”

“She was in and out of consciousness.  She woke up long enough to tell us who she was and how she got there.  I don’t think she completely understood who we were, but it didn’t matter.  I just knew that after she told us she was Margaret’s daughter, and she was kidnapped, we needed to get her as far away from the barn, and Bennington, as possible.”

“So you got her out and to the hospital.”

“No, not right away. Margaret returned.”

Steve sighed.  “Oh, I bet that was fun.”

“Jack had parked the car where he didn’t think she’d see it, but on her way out she did, so she came back.  She thought it was you,” she said, looking right at Steve.  “At the time I didn’t know who Steve was...she just kept accusing us of being sent by you - of doing your dirty work.  I’m not sure if she finally believed us that we didn’t know who you were, or if she just gave up fighting it.  But she was not about to let Amy out of that barn.  She threatened to harm us if we didn't leave.  I tried every psych nurse trick I had...she wasn't listening.  I'm pretty sure she's had some kind of psychotic break.”

Steve laughed.  "She killed me off, yet she was afraid I'd found her and Amy?  That's certainly something a sane person worries about - a ghost haunting them."  He laughed some more.

"Is sane really the word you want to use?" Lilly asked.

Steve grinned.  “Touché.  So, she would have rather let her own child die in that barn than face the fact that Amy likes me better,” Steve uttered in complete disbelief.  

There was a slightly tense moment of silence until Lilly added, “She only relented when Amy whispered something in her ear.”

Surprised, Steve looked at Lilly and asked, “What was it?”

Lilly shook her head and together, she and Steve said, “She didn’t say.”

“Figures,” Steve muttered.

“However, she, well...see, what we did was get Amy out of the barn and drive her into town and to the fire station.  From there, an ambulance took her to Omaha.  It was Jack’s idea.  He figured if we did it that way, Margaret wouldn’t know what hospital they took Amy to.  It helps to be the former police chief.  Anyway, as the firemen were loading her into the ambulance, Amy called her mother over.  Then, as loud as she could muster, she said, 'I was kidding.'  Then she passed out."  

" 'I was kidding?'  How did Margaret take that?"

"It took two hefty firemen to hold her down.  We were lucky that the entire crew was at the station for a meeting, otherwise it would have just been the two ambulance drivers there."

Steve sat back in the seat and got out the diary with Amy's entries.

"Once they were gone, we headed back to Iowa with Margaret.  Jack and I wanted to put as much distance between Amy and Margaret as we could.  Seventy-five miles with a bum leg seemed safe enough.  Guess we were wrong.

"The entire way home, she just kept muttering things like, 'He won't get away with it,' or 'She'll realize her mistake when he's dead,' or 'We'll see who she's loyal to when he can't protect her.' "  Lilly turned around and looked at Steve.  "Was she talking about you?  Amy was certain her mother had something to do with your supposed death."

Steve nodded as her flipped through the pages, looking for certain entries.  When he found them, he looked up and said, "I bet I know what she said to her mother."

Mike glanced at him through the rear view mirror.  "What's that?"

"Amy mentioned a couple times that she refused to agree to one thing Margaret wanted - said she'd rather die than do it.  I bet she finally agreed to get out of that barn...but then took it back once she knew she was safe."

"So what did she agree to?" Lilly asked.

"Letting me go."  He shook his head.  "Even though she thought I was dead...she still wouldn't let go.  I don't know if I should be mad or thrilled."

"Cautious," Mike told him.  "You now have a target on your back...and your hunter is out there running free."

Steve looked up at the rear view mirror.  "Hasn't she always been?"


	42. Chapter 42

**_Sunday, May 26, 1974_ **

Tim paced the hallway outside Amy’s room.  It had turned out to be an unsuccessful morning for him; his phone call to the Omaha PD was only good in finding out that no one in the entire department knew who or what he was talking about.  They had never heard the names Margaret or Amy Johnson, and no one from San Francisco had contacted them for any reason.  Tim could not wrap his head around that; he was positive that Mike would have been on their trail by now.  He now felt some cross between confused and disillusioned.

That news, and the lack of sleep, made him a bit cranky, and when he informed Amy of his findings, she too became cranky.  She also went back to insisting Steve was dead.

“He would have found me by now.  Margaret is _not_ that smart,” Amy insisted.

“But what if she’s somehow inserted herself into the investigation?  What if she’s intercepting information, or leaving false clues behind on purpose?” Tim suggested.  “It would hardly be the first time a criminal has done that.”

“She’s not that smart,” she repeated.

“Maybe she’s working with someone who is that smart.”

Amy narrowed her gaze.  “No one would be stupid enough to work with my mother.”  She turned away and began a morning-long mourning period.

Later on, Karen, who had been cranky but was now much more upbeat, came in with a portable record player and some compilation albums she and Ben had picked up for a dollar a piece.  The two had decided that since Amy’s spirits had recently improved, some music might lift them even higher.  However, the albums that Karen picked were packed with love songs, each making Amy cry a little more until she and Karen were arguing about the whole situation.  Ben gave up and chose to see if he could find a cute girl in a body cast that needed assistance.  That left Tim to referee the battle between the cousins.  Instead, he told them both they were acting like spoiled brats and left the room.

Only recently had he made his way back upstairs, but he couldn’t quite make himself go into the room.  He preferred to walk the hall instead.  That’s where he ran into a man in an Omaha PD uniform.

“Hey, can you point me toward room 618?  I can’t seem to find it anywhere.”

Tim wanted to ask how he managed to even become a cop if he couldn’t find a room that was in plain sight, but he just smiled and nodded.  “That’s my...sister-in-law’s room.  Can I help you with something?”  He wasn’t sure why he referred to Amy as his sister-in-law, but it was easier than girlfriend’s cousin.

He started walking back toward Amy’s room, and the young officer followed him.  “I’m here to stand guard outside the room actually.”

Tim stopped walking and turned to face the man.  “Stand guard?  What for?”

“The Bennington Police Chief contacted our department about a kidnapper on the loose, and her target is in room 618.”

“So you guys do know about Margaret!  They told me earlier than they’d never heard of her.”

The officer nodded.  “Margaret Johnson.  I think the call came in not too long ago.  My CO informed me right away.  Problem is, he gave me virtually no details of the crime...I don’t even have a photo of Mrs. Johnson!  I asked him for her driver’s license picture, but he told me he didn’t know which state to check.”

“Call him and tell him California.  She’s from Thousand Oaks.”  Tim started walking again.  “I’ll have you meet Amy - that’s her daughter.  She’ll give you all the details you never wanted.”

Seconds later, the two men were at Amy’s bedside, explaining why the officer was there, and having Amy explain to him what kind of woman he was keeping at bay.  After his initial shock wore off, he called headquarters and told them that Margaret was from California, but to also check with the Douglas County Sheriff in case they had an old rap sheet on her.

The officer left as a nurse was coming in with Amy’s lunch.  Tim left as well.  He was going to find Ben and the two were going to hang around the lobby floor in case Margaret actually showed up.  Karen tried to get in on the surveillance, but Tim bluntly told her that in a wheelchair with a broken leg and arm she was no match for her aunt, no matter how feisty and angry Karen was.  She was simply better off sitting with Amy and keeping her calm, which was actually an even more difficult task.

 

* * *

 

Tim was growing restless and bored.  He took the main entrance while Ben floated between a couple lesser-used doors.  For two hours, he had seen what seemed like half the population of Nebraska come and go, but none of the people were Margaret.  He was grateful for this, but he also wanted something more to do.   _Is this how awful stakeouts can be?_ he asked himself.  

He got up and headed outside.  The late spring sun was shining brightly now, which was a welcome relief from the dreary morning.  There were still plenty of puddles on the sidewalks and parking lots, and he watched a couple small children upset their mother by splashing in the water and getting their dress clothes all wet.

“Grandma does not want to see your nice shoes all muddy,” he heard the woman say as she dragged the children inside.  He laughed, remembering hearing similar scoldings from his own parents.  

As time dragged on, he started wandering around the front of the hospital.  He did not look the least bit out of place, for there were doctors, nurses, patients, and guests standing around all over.  Apparently the word had gotten out that the rain had ceased, and everyone in the building needed fresh air at the same time.  He was watching a couple cute nurses when he heard someone calling his name from behind.  At first, he did not turn around.  He had been in that situation before - someone calls your name, you turn around, and they’re calling someone else - and it was awkward.  He wasn’t falling for it again.  However, he heard his name a second time, and the voice, though distant, sounded familiar.  But who would know him in Omaha?

“Timothy!”

He turned and saw the very familiar face of Mike Stone.  His jaw dropped.  “Oh my God, Mike...you found us!”

Mike ran up to Tim and the two hugged.  Lilly looked at Steve who just shrugged; he had no idea who this young man was.  He was, however, annoyed at another delay.  They were mere feet from Amy now, and yet they were stopped on the sidewalk for a reunion.  He was only interested in having a reunion with his girlfriend.

The two let go of each other and Mike asked, “What on earth are you doing here?  You’re just about the last person I expected to see here!”

Tim chuckled.  “It’s a crazy story really.  I've been trying to call you for two days, but no one seemed to know where you were.  Have you been on your way here?"

Mike nodded.

"I knew you wouldn't let me down.  So you must be why there's now a cop standing guard.  I tried to convince her that the newspaper was fake, and that you'd figure things out like we did, but she's about as stubborn as Karen."

"Wait...you know Amy?" Steve asked, suddenly interested in the conversation.    

Tim turned to Steve.  "Sure.  I'm sort of seeing her cousin."  He chuckled and said, "I bet you're kind of anxious to get upstairs.  And trust me, she’ll be thrilled to see you.  She’s back to assuming you’re dead."

Steve smiled at the thought.  "Actually, now I'm just kind of confused."

Mike smiled.  "Remember me telling you about the little boy I rescued?  How it reminded me of you and Jasmine?"

Steve nodded slowly until it clicked.  "Oh!  You're the boy!  And wait, you're seeing my girlfriend's cousin?"

"Small world."

Mike looked at Tim.  "How did you guys find...you know what?  There's all the time in the world for that later.  How 'bout we head upstairs?"

All four nodded and followed Tim into the building.  Mike introduced Tim to Lilly, who was surprised that Amy hadn't mentioned her company during their phone call the night before.

On the elevator ride up, Tim came up with an idea that was a bit more merry than just having Steve walk into Amy's room and announce himself.  "Month-long separations deserve big reunions," he said.

 

* * *

 

Tim walked into the room and in the middle of another argument.  He couldn’t tell what the cousins were arguing about this time, and he really did not care.  The mood was about to change drastically anyway.

“Would you tell her to eat?  That food has been sitting there for two hours now, and she hasn’t touched it,” Karen demanded.

“I’m not hungry,” Amy answered in her best pouty child voice.  “I can’t eat when I’m about to be killed.”

Tim looked down at the tray sitting in front of Amy.  “Well, I wouldn’t eat it now either; it’s cold.  Hell, even warm it probably tasted like crap anyway...whatever it is.”

Karen tried to protest, but Tim interrupted.

“She’s right though, you do need to eat.  I’ll make you a deal.  You need to get some walking in, so if you walk out to the hall with me, I’ll go buy you whatever you want.”

“I don’t feel like eating...or walking," she whined.

“You will when you get to the hall,” Tim countered.

Amy gave him a dirty look.  “What?  How the hell does the hallway make one not feel like they’re about to puke?”

“I guess you’re just gonna have to walk out there and find out, now aren’t you?”

Amy rolled her eyes and looked at Karen.  “What is he talking about?”

She shrugged and shook her head.

“I don’t want to walk.  It hurts to walk.”

“And it will hurt worse if you don’t.  Come on; you haven’t been out of bed all day, and you really need to see what’s in the hall.”

“There’s a cop in the hall; I already saw him.”

“There’s a different cop out there now.”

“I don’t need to meet them all, you know.”

“Yeah you do.  He has some questions for you.”

Amy sat up and turned her body toward Tim.  Her left leg was now dangling off the side while her right leg stayed on the bed.  “He can just ask me in here.”

Tim shook his head.  “He says he needs to stay in the hall.”

“The other guy came in here.”

“Yeah...well, that guy was a rookie and didn’t know better.  This guy is a detective.”

“Now I have to talk to a detective?”  She sighed.  “None of this is going to do any good anyway!  If she knows the cops are on to her, she’s probably fled to, I don’t know, Uruguay by now.”

“You don’t know that.  Let’s go talk to the guy and see what he has to say.  He tells me he’s an expert at finding missing people.”

Amy rolled her eyes again but hopped off the bed onto her left leg.  “Wait a minute.  How did Omaha find out about me anyway?  You said they hadn’t even heard of me.”

Tim shrugged.  “Ask the detective.”  

Amy hesitated and almost sat back down, prompting Karen to say, “Just get it done and over with, Amy.  How can talking to a detective hurt?  Be glad they have a detective looking into the case instead of just sweeping it under the rug.”

Amy turned to look at her cousin.  “What if he’s a fake detective?”  She turned to Tim.  “You mentioned something about her working with others.  What if this guy is one of her people?  Did you see his badge?  This whole thing seems iffy to me,” she asked anxiously.

Tim said nothing; he simply stared at her hoping that his annoyed look would get through.

“Okay, okay.  I’ll see for myself,” she muttered.  

Tim grinned and handed her the crutches that had been sitting against the wall behind him.  

“How come they’re making me use these anyway?  I still have this damn cast on my wrist!  I shouldn’t be putting weight on my arm like this.”

“Does your wrist hurt?” Tim asked.

Amy shook her head.  “Not at all, but…”

“And didn’t they say it was healed?  It was a very simple break that took less time to heal than most.  I talked to your doctor and PT, and they said while you had the last cast off, you were able to move the wrist well.  The only reason they’re keeping you in a cast is so that you can put more weight on it.  Besides, you weigh all of what, a hundred pounds?”

Karen scoffed.  “If that.  That’s why she needs to eat!”

“Trust me, if the doctors and PT’s didn’t think your wrist or knee were up to the challenge, you wouldn’t be on crutches.”

“You’d be an invalid like me,” Karen groaned.

Amy looked at Tim and sighed.  She tucked the crutches under her arms, took a deep breath, and swung the crutches and her right leg forward.  Tim noticed she was putting almost all her weight on her arms, with the right bearing most of the load.  He wanted to say something about how she should have her weight on both arms evenly, but he felt now was not the time.  She then moved her good left leg forward and stopped.

“Good, now keep going…” Tim prompted.

“I’m...I’m getting there.  It hurts a lot today.  I got sick of the stupid pain pills they kept giving me.”

“Not taking the pills is no excuse,” Tim growled, putting on his physical therapist hat.  “Use it or lose it, Sweets.”

She glared at him; he simply grinned.  She sighed and extremely slowly stepped forward with some weight on her right leg, gritting her teeth and whining the entire time.

“That’s it.  You’re doing fine.  Let your arms and the crutches bear most of the weight.”

After the one step, Amy leaned completely on her left leg and cried.  “Why does it hurt so bad?”

“Your leg muscles are weak...and unlike your wrist, your knee was a pretty bad break, so it’ll probably take a lot of extra time to heal.  Have you been doing your leg lifts and foot flexes?"

Amy nodded, but then changed it to a head shake.  "It hurts."

"Not having any leg muscles hurts worse.  C'mon, we're keeping the poor guy waiting."

Amy took another couple slow steps forward before stopping and crying some more.

"Work through the pain," Tim prompted.  "You're almost to the door."

"Can I stop once I get there?"

Tim didn't answer, so she took two more painful steps forward.  Then he smiled a rather large smile.

"Are you enjoying this?" Amy asked derisively.

"No, but you'll enjoy this," he answered as he opened the door to reveal the hallway - and the man standing in the middle of it.

Amy lost her breath somewhere in the back of her throat.  For a month, she had wished, prayed, begged, and pleaded for this very moment, assuming that it was all for naught.  Part of her honestly believed she would never see Steve again, for one reason or another, and that small part of her had prepared for that lonely bitterness.  But now he was here, in the flesh, looking at her like she was one of the Seven Wonders of the World.  

“It’s...it’s...really you…” she whispered, her left hand over her mouth.

“Yeah, it’s really me.  Definitely worse for wear, but still me.”

She nodded.  “Me too.”

Karen, who had wheeled herself behind Amy, gasped.  Amy started crying again.

"Oh, Honey, why is it that every time I see you, you're crying?" Steve teased the frail woman standing before him.

She chuckled and just kept muttering, "Oh my God."

"Come here," he told her softly.

"I can't.  You come here."

"Hey, I flew fifteen hundred miles to see you.  You can walk fifteen feet to see me."  He smiled.

She couldn't resist his smile...she'd do anything for that smile.  Taking a deep breath and holding it, she grinned and endured every excruciating step until she got to Steve.  Then she let the crutches crash to the floor and collapsed in his arms.

The two held each other as tight as two people could without cutting off anyone's oxygen.  Everyone else looked on, happy that their month-long problem was finally put to rest.  Their missing person was alive and well and with the one person she needed more than anyone.

Tim told everyone he had another idea, and they all followed him to the nurses' station.  The officer excused himself to make a phone call that he really didn't need to make; he just felt awkward watching the reunion.

Crying into his neck as she ran her fingers through his hair, she asked, "Where have you been?  I missed you so much."

"I missed you more," he whispered in her ear, never answering her first question.  "I'm so relieved you're okay."

"I am now," is all she said back.  “Are you okay?”

“Never been better.”

The two held each other for several more moments until Steve reluctantly let go - though not completely.  He still had one hand on each side of her face and used his thumbs to wipe away her tears.

“Nice to see you haven’t changed much,” he joshed.

“I’m still the same mess I was before.”

“Yeah, but you’re my beautiful mess.”  He kissed her on the forehead.

“Beautiful?  I’m pretty sure by everyone’s reactions to me, I look like a zombie.  I refuse to even look in a mirror.”  Tears started collecting in her eyes again, so Steve tried to make her feel better about her appearance.

“Hey, you’ve either been in a hospital or in a dilapidated barn for the last month.  You haven’t seen much sunlight or eaten normally in all that time, have you?”

Amy gingerly shook her head.

Steve looked right into Amy’s blue eyes and said, “Babe, I’m not going to lie to you.  I don’t want to start our relationship off that way.  You look...different.  Sickly.  Yeah, you’ve lost a lot of weight that you really couldn’t afford to lose, and your skin has lost all its color...but you just came out of hell!  And you came out alive!  A month ago, did you think you were strong enough to come out of all this turmoil in one piece?  Did you even care if you did?”  

She looked in his eyes momentarily but quickly shifted her gaze downward.  “No...not really.”

“Do you care now?”

Not looking up, she whispered, “Do you?”

“Do I what?  Care if you’re alive?  Amy...you’re the only reason I'm still here.”

That made her look straight into Steve’s tear-filled green eyes.  Those tears had intense fear and deep affection in them, so much so that it scared Amy into realizing she was reverting to her stupid self-demoralizing behavior of before she met him.  Old habits die hard, but it was time to put the final nail in this habit’s coffin.

She managed a very slight smile and whispered, “Same here.”

Steve grinned back.  “I wish you could see yourself through my eyes, see how amazing you really are.  You fought off Paul, your mother...your own depression...and here you are standing in front of me in one piece, stronger than you’ve ever been.”

“Strong?” she asked skeptically.

“Very.  You could have just given up, right?  But you didn’t.  Whether it was for me, or Jasmine...or hatred for your mother...it doesn’t matter.  You’re here…”  He bit his bottom lip to keep from losing control of his feelings.  “...and you’re alive.”

She threw her arms around his neck again.  “And so are you.  She didn’t get you...and you came back to me...Steve?”

“Hmm?”

“I love you so much.  So, so much.”

He paused before whispering, “I wish I felt like I deserved it."


	43. Chapter 43

**_Sunday, May 26, 1974_ **

Amy pulled away from the embrace and looked worriedly at Steve.  “What did you say?”

He quickly shook his head.  “I just said I love you too.  Hey, why don’t we take a walk, find some place to talk.  I bet you’re tired of being in that room.”  He bent down and picked up her crutches.

Amy knew that’s not what he said, but she was not in the mood to force him into talking about anything.  She just wanted to enjoy the fact that he was alive and there with her - that she was finally able to bury some of her anxiety for good. 

“There’s a little sitting area down at the end of the hall.  I don’t usually see a lot of people there, so we could have privacy.”

Steve nodded.  “Good.  Will you take a walk with me?”

Amy’s spirits fell.  “You want me to walk all the way down there?”

“You walked out here, didn’t you?”

“Tim made me...then you made me,” she whined.

“Fair enough, but don’t you want to get past all this and show your mother that you’re much stronger than she ever expected?”

Amy snickered.  “Are you trying to guilt me?”

“Maayyybe.  Is it working?”

“Maayyybe.  As long as you’re up for a very slow jaunt.”

“Where else would I rather be?”

Amy took her crutches from Steve, and the two carefully made their way down to the end of the hall.  Steve wanted to pick her up and carry her just so she wouldn’t have to look like she was in agonizing misery anymore.  However, he knew she needed to do this so that she would be able to walk normally in the future, so he stayed by her side, encouraging her like a coach on the sidelines.

When they got to the lounge, Amy plopped down in the first chair she saw.  It was a bench seat big enough for two, so Steve took a seat next to her.  Once seated, Amy put the crutches on the floor in front of her, bent over, and started crying in Steve’s lap.

“Hurts that bad?”

She nodded.

He gently stroked her hair and rubbed her back.  “I’m proud of you.”

“What for?” she asked into his legs.

“What for?  Fighting through these injuries, fighting through your head telling you to give up...attacking your mother and then lying to her to get out of the barn.”  He chuckled.

She sat up quickly.  “How’d you know about that?”

“Lilly told us.”

“Lilly’s here?”

Steve nodded. “She’s how we finally found you.”

“She tell you a lot?”

He shrugged.  “Some.”

She tried to wipe her face dry with her shirt sleeve. “How  _ did _ you find me?  Seems like it took forever.”

He sighed and stood up, taking to pacing the small room and not looking at Amy.

“What?  Did I say something?  Steve?  Are you mad at me?” she asked in an absolute panic.  "Please don't be mad at me."

He turned around and softly said, “No, Baby, no...of course I’m not mad at you.  Are you mad at me?  You have every right to be furious.  You’re right; it did take me forever to get here.  I should have been here right after it happened!  I should have been in that hospital room with you.  I should have been able to get into your mother's head better.  I should have..."

By now, he was practically shouting, which bothered Amy.  

"Hey!  Calm down.  Please.  It's hurting my head."

He rubbed his face and turned back away from her.

"Sit down," she said, patting the seat next to her.  "Steve, please.  I wanna hold your hand.  I can't do that if you're standing over there."

He turned around and saw Amy holding out her right hand.  Sighing, he took it and sat back down.

She wrapped both hands around his and held them close to her heart.  "I am not now, nor was I ever, mad at you about anything.  Ever.  All my hatred energy went toward Margaret.  Honestly, if I hadn’t gotten sick, and then thought you were dead, I would have waited forever for you.”

“But you said…”

“Nothing.  I said nothing.  Sure, I would have loved it if you’d have come and rescued me right away, but I guess Margaret is smarter than I gave her credit for.  I mean, I wouldn’t have guessed I’d end up in Nebraska.  I didn’t even know she had that other life.  If I didn’t know, you guys wouldn’t have.”

“But I’m supposed to be a professional detective,” he grumbled.

“And she’s my mother!  I should have known all about her life!  I should have known she grew up in Nebraska with crazy parents!  I mean, don’t regular kids know at least a little about their parents’ lives before they were born?  Honestly, do they?  Did you?  I’m finally realizing that nothing about my upbringing was anywhere near normal, so I don’t know if I even know what it is to be a normal person.”

She frowned as she looked at Steve.  The pitiful look on her face mellowed him significantly.  He knew she was trying to be lighthearted about the situation, but he also knew she was completely serious about thinking she didn’t know how to be whatever version of normal she was trying for.

“You’re just as normal as me.  You turned out fine despite your mother.  I suppose most kids know more about their families, but not all do, especially when their mom or dad don’t tell them.  You can’t know what no one told you.”

She kissed his hand.  “Exactly.  And you can’t blame yourself for what Margaret kept hidden from everyone.”  Scooting closer to him, she laid her head on his shoulder and said, “You know why we get along so well?”

Steve leaned his head over and rested it on hers but stayed silent.

“We both seem to have this ridiculous habit of blaming ourselves for things other people do.  I blamed myself for what happened with Paul.  You’re blaming yourself for not finding me right away…”

“For you going missing in the first place,” he interrupted.

“Staahhhpp.  Point is, neither one of us ever did anything wrong to be sorry for.  All we did was fall for each other.  That’s literally all we did!  Neither of us are to blame for what’s happened.  If we are...then half the world should be sorry for falling in love as well.  That’s all we did...and I am NOT apologizing for that!”

She picked up her head and looked in his eyes.  “Are you sorry you met me?”

“God no,” he quickly answered.  “Are you sorry you met me?  Your mother might not be so crazy if…”

“Screw my mother!” Amy hissed.  “She was insane from the day she was born!  And I don’t care what she thinks about you!  She’s wrong and if it kills her, too fucking bad!  She deserves everything that’s coming to her!”

Steve pulled his head away from her slightly.  Her sudden anger surprised him.  It was just like what he had read in the diaries about Amy wanting to kill Margaret.

“What?” Amy asked as Steve continued to stare at her.

“You hate her that much?”

“Of course I hate her that much!  I hate her more than she hates you!  That bitch has tried to control my life from the minute I was born.  Do this Amy, be friends with these people Amy, I’ll tell you who you can and cannot date Amy...no more!  She pushed me too far!  This...this was the last straw!”

She was squeezing his hand so tight that it started to tingle.  He managed to wiggle out of her grip before asking, “What was?”

“When she got that fake newspaper and convinced me you were dead.  True, she’s done a lot of horrible things since we met, but that…”  Amy swallowed hard.  “That was too much.  Way too much.”

Steve gave her a very concerned look.  “Worse than kidnapping you?” he asked, befuddled.

“She wasn’t going to kill me.  Let me die...maybe, but I doubt that too.  But convincing me you were dead?  She should have just shot me herself.  It would have saved me having to…”

He immediately put his hand over her mouth.  There was no way he was going to let her speak what was on her mind.  He had already run that scenario through in his mind enough, and he never wanted to picture that scene ever again.

“I am not worth it.  And you would never leave your daughter behind like that.”

“I think you are.  Life without you is not worth living,” she said sincerely, removing his hand from her mouth.

Instead of making Steve feel good inside like a compliment usually does, her statement broke his heart.  He loved that he meant that much to her, but he hated thinking that she was so dependent on him that she would rather die than be without him.  But then he remembered his initial reactions to her not being around and the possibility that she never would be; they weren’t much different.  Instead of being hypocritically upset, he gently placed his hand on the side of her face and kissed her forehead.  “I think you are too,” he whispered.

“And as for Jasmine, it really doesn’t matter anyway.  She’ll never be mine.”

“Oh ye of little faith.  You have no idea how powerful I am.”  He gave her a cute little “I have something up my sleeve” grin.

She took his hand off her face and squeezed it again.  “What are you talking about?”

He explained Jasmine’s entire situation, including her middle of the night phone calls to him, her ending up in Los Angeles, them “kidnapping” her from the school, and the trail his private investigator was blazing.  “She’s back at the hotel waiting for me to bring you home.”

Tears streamed down Amy’s cheeks and she had both her hands over her mouth in shock and awe.  “You did all that for her?  She’s not even your child.  Hell, you just met her.”

“Hey, once those blue eyes look at you and tell you they love you...all bets are off.  I’ve always been a sucker for a cute girl.”  He winked.

Amy chuckled and told him, “You honestly are the best man in the whole world.  There’s no way I’ve ever done anything good enough to deserve you.”

“Don’t discount yourself so quickly.  And stop crying!”  He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and used it to wipe her face.  

“I cry when I’m happy; I can’t help it.”  She put her arms around him again and pulled him close, alternating between crying on and kissing his neck.

“And I love it on you,” he replied.

Feeling so happy and relieved, Amy strayed from kissing his neck and the side of his face to where she really wanted to kiss him - on the mouth.  She had waited a month for this - a month to feel his soft, warm lips on hers.  Their first kiss, and every one after that, had made her feel a passion and yearning that she had never felt before.  She had virtually no experience kissing the opposite sex, but she could tell beyond a doubt that Steve’s kisses were telling her how much he adored her...until now.

It wasn’t as bad as kissing a dead fish, and it was more emotional than kissing a relative, but it felt like a two person game that only Amy was playing.  This was not the type of kisses she was used to from Steve, and her anxiety-riddled mind went straight to many possible reasons, none of which were particularly positive or rational.  Was he no longer as interested in her?  Did he just lose interest when he saw her now?  Was there someone else?  There was someone else.  There had to be someone else.  That thought started going through her mind like a record stuck on the same song.  To her, it made total sense.  She wasn’t around for an entire month, and Steve wasn’t exactly known for his long-term relationships.  

She gently released her lips from his and sat back, nervously brushing her hair back from her face.  “Sorry.”

He ignored her statement; he knew he had kept something back, but now was not the time to confess his sins.  That time would likely never come.  

“Hey, promise me something,” Steve said instead, raising her head to look at him.  “Promise me that as long as Jasmine or I are alive, you will never think you have nothing to live for, okay?  I don’t like thinking that Margaret almost made us pull a Romeo & Juliet.”

“Huh?”

“After you read the newspaper and thought I was dead, you felt like you had nothing to live for, other than seeing your mother die before you, right?  Well, if you’d have gone through with it...”

“Oh.  It would have been for nothing, like them.”  Amy narrowed her eyes.  “Wait, how did you know that I was giving up?  Did Lilly tell you about the fake newspaper?”

Steve pulled the diary with her writings out of his coat pocket.  “I read about it.”

Then her eyes widened as far as they could.  “You...you read all that?”  She pulled the diary out of his hand like he had stolen it from her.

“You wanted someone to find them, didn’t you?”

“Well...uh...yeah, I suppose.  But I figured I’d be dead by then and it wouldn’t matter if I was embarrassed.”

“Embarrassed?  By what?”

She looked down at the book in her hand.  “Just...it’s sappy and stupid.”

“I didn’t think so!  You’re the only woman who’s ever written me love letters before.  Why would I think you telling me how you were feeling and that you were thinking of me was stupid?”

She shrugged.  

“Did you mean what you said?”

Quickly tilting her head up, she said, “Of course I did!  All of it.”

He smiled.  “I’m glad.  Very glad.”

She half smiled and looked back down at her lap.  

“I’m sorry that you had to go through all that...being starved, breathing in God knows what, being left alone...but I feel better knowing about it.  And it was probably easier telling a piece of paper than sitting here and telling me now.”

“Why does it make you feel better?”

“Because now I feel like I can help you get over it better.”

Amy mouthed the word “oh” and wiped a few tears from her face.  “You’re probably right.  I’d kind of like to forget it actually.  At least for a while.”

Steve nodded and ran his fingers through her hair.  The gentle, loving touch made her question his lackluster kiss, but it was still front and center in her mind.

“Um, speaking of talking about things that happened while we were apart…”  She could have asked a hundred questions; she had that many to ask.  But she was also sure she didn’t want to know most of the answers, so she stuck with one that had been bugging her about her mother’s overall plan.

“...did Margaret do the same to you - make you think I was dead?  I don’t know why that thought crossed my mind, especially since I really did think you were dead, but...I dunno, maybe she was trying to torture us both to see who would cave first.”

“She did actually.  She sent me a picture of you lying on what looked like a slab in the morgue.  Somehow she had painted you to look dead pale.  Jeannie actually proved that wrong by finding a tiny spot where she missed some paint.”

Amy dropped her mouth open.  “That’s what that was?  I kept getting this weird whitish blue stuff on my fingers when I’d rub my neck around my hairline.  I thought my skin was falling off or something.  She...she painted me?  To make it look like I was a corpse.”

Steve nodded and took a deep breath.  “A corpse that had jumped off a bridge.  It was...it was very convincing to be honest.”

“Did you...you know...try pulling a Romeo?”  She placed her hand on his knee.

He looked down at his lap and placed a hand on top of hers.  “I thought about it.”  He let the breath out.

Just then, Tim came into the lounge area.  “Sorry if I’m interrupting.”

They both looked up at him and Amy shook her head.  “What’s up?”

“I just talked to the doctor, and he’s ready to send you home now...if that’s alright.  I figured since you were likely leaving tomorrow anyway, and now Steve is here, maybe you’d rather recoup in a hotel instead of a hospital.”

Steve smiled, looked up at Tim and then at Amy.  “I think that’s a great idea.  Let’s go home...so to speak.”

Amy grinned.  Maybe getting away from the hospital would open more opportunities to get to the bottom of everything that happened over the last few weeks.  Or perhaps it would just make talking more difficult.  “I want out of here.”

“I’ll go let him know, and we’ll get all your stuff packed up.”  Tim turned and walked back toward Amy’s room.

Steve stood up and helped Amy to her feet.  He then handed her the crutches, but before she could do anything with them, he pulled her into another embrace.  “Things will get better, I swear.  I meant it when I said I’d never give up on you.  There's nothing Margaret can do to change that.”

“I’m not giving you up either,” she muttered into his chest.  She wasn’t sure if he caught the fact that she changed the wording.  If there was someone else, Amy was prepared to put up a fight equal to the one she was willing to forge with her mother.  She had been pushed way too far.


	44. Chapter 44

**_Sunday, May 26, 1974 - Chicago, Illinois_ **

Instead of booking a flight to San Francisco, Mark got the idea to head to Chicago first to see if he could learn anything about Sergeant Holloway’s time with the Chicago Police.  He couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something more to the sergeant’s dead partner story than what he had been told.

After a twenty minute taxi ride from Midway to downtown, Mark entered the CPD’s main offices, hoping he could get some kind of information, or at the very least find someone willing to speak off the record.  He approached a hefty desk sergeant, showed the man his badge, and tried to ask if he could speak to anyone who knew a former officer by the name of…

“Holloway...is that the guy’s first name or last?” the man asked gruffly.

“Last.  His first name is…”  Mark realized he had no idea what Sergeant Holloway’s first name was.  “I have no idea.  I just know that a few years back, he was a uniformed officer here in Chicago, and my lieutenant has requested I sort of dig up some dirt on the man.”

“Dig up some dirt?  You with IA?”

“No, Homicide.”

“You think this guy killed someone?  And he’s a cop in...where’d you say you was from?”

“San Francisco.  And we think he’s trying to frame a fellow officer...or something.  I was just curious about his background.”

“And what’s this got to do with us?”

Mark nervously ran his fingers through his hair.  “Well, see, he told me this story about something that happened while he was on the job here.  A fellow officer was killed, and I think the grudge Holloway is holding about that is the basis for what he’s doing now.”

“You say a cop was killed?”  The man looked down and drummed the desk with a pen.  “How ‘bout you tell me the story, and maybe it’ll spark somethin’.  I’ve been around a long time; I remember most of the on-duty murders.”

“Okay, well, he said that this guy and him were friends, but not partners.  They worked out of the same precinct though.  One day, they both responded to a bank robbery.  The robbers had taken hostages as well.  His friend’s partner was a real maverick and attempted to take down the robbers all by himself, which he did, but a lady got shot in the process.  I think she was a teller.  

“Anyway, despite the fact that he got her shot, he must have felt guilty about it because he stayed with her through the whole ordeal, and the two ended up having some kind of affair.  Well, this cop ends up telling the woman all the inside information about the investigation into the robbers, who were still on the loose.  Turns out, the woman was in on the robbery and told all this inside information to the robbers.”

A small lady in a straight skirt and sweater came up behind the desk sergeant and began listening in.

“The robbers went after the detectives investigating the case, and Holloway’s friend and his partner ended up in a shootout.  The friend was killed.  I have no idea when all this happened.”

The sergeant turned and saw the woman standing behind him.  “That sounds kinda familiar.  Whadaya think, Betty?”

She nodded.  “It does.  Sounds like something that happened down in the 22nd about ten years ago.  Lemme go look through some files.”  

She took off back into the office area, and Mark had a seat in the lobby.  Twenty minutes later, Betty came back with several file folders in her hand.  “What did you say the guy’s name was?” she asked Mark.

He stood up and sauntered back to the reception desk.  “Holloway.”

Shaking her head, she said, “Well, this case didn’t involve anyone named Holloway, but it sounds just like your story.  It was down in the 22nd Precinct.  The officer who was shot was named Gabriel Eccleston.  Died on March 18, 1964.  His partner was Mitchell Dickenson.”

Betty pulled out a photograph from the folder.  “This your guy?” she asked, showing Mark the picture of Dickenson.  

Once he saw the picture, Mark knew he had been taken for a ride.  “That’s him.”

Betty took the picture back and looked at it more closely.  “Oh yeah?  I remember this guy.  Pretty sure he was on IA’s radar since the day he got hired.  I used to be the secretary for the captain in charge of IA, and I saw this guy’s name come up on more reports than any other man.  He also came in more often than any other officer.  Real sleaze, always trying to hit on anything with a skirt.  He was probably why people started calling policemen pigs.  He was suspected of bribery, collusion, bullying fellow officers, sexual harassment, using his badge to get into places he shouldn’t have been in...oh, I could go on and on.”  

She showed it to the sergeant who nodded in agreement.  “That guy was a bastard.  He was quite well-known throughout the entire department.  Mostly as an asshole who thought he was better’n everyone.”

“So wait a minute.  You’re saying that Hollow...Mitchell Dickenson was the partner who got the lady shot, dated her, then got his partner killed?”

Betty looked down at Dickenson’s file.  She began reading what appeared to be a rather lengthy report.  “You say this guy is now with IA in San Francisco?”

“Under some false identity, I guess.”

“Well, as many incidents as he had been investigated for, it doesn’t surprise me that he was able to convince another department that he would be good in that job.”  She kept reading and then looked up and said, “I shouldn’t really say anything, but I would feel bad if I didn’t help you guys in San Francisco get rid of that guy.  So…maybe we keep where you got the information under wraps?”

Stilwell nodded.  “I found it in an alley.”

Betty grinned and looked back down at the file.  “Yeah, he was the one who told case details to the victim of the robbery, who was working with the robbers.  She and they all ended up in prison.  He ended up being investigated and kicked off the force.  Oh…” she muttered worriedly.

“What?” Mark inquired.

“Seems he, uh, attempted to go after the guys who fired him.  Harassed them, attempted murder...then he disappears without a trace in May of ‘64.”

Mark shook his head.  “Changes his name and ends up in San Francisco.  Your men still have an open file on him?”

Betty nodded.  “I bet they’d love to get a piece of your action.”

He asked for contact information for the investigating detectives and told Betty he would likely be in contact with them once he got back to California.  Thanking them both, he headed out to hail a cab back to the airport.  

On the ride to Midway, he thought about everything Holloway...or Dickenson...had pulled.  Not only did he get a cushy inspectors job under false pretenses, but he then used that position to punish officers for doing things he had likely done himself.  And for what?  Mark couldn’t seem to make any logical sense of why a man would go around chastising others for his own sins.  Was it some sort of weird self-punishment?  An ego trip?  Did Holloway feel that his life had been so ruined that he needed to ruin others’ lives as well?  Mark had a feeling he would never figure out the why of the case, but he knew that to atone for his own egotistical sins, he needed to help Steve get out of Holloway’s web.

* * *

 

**_San Francisco, California_ **

On the plane home, Stilwell planned out his moves.  He had decided that he needed to accomplish two things - get into Holloway’s office, and somehow get ahold of his personnel file.  Both weren’t exactly easy or ethical, but he didn’t care; now he was mad.  He was mad at Holloway for being arrogant enough to create this web of lies that caught many honest people, and he was angry with himself for being too naive to see it.  If it took breaking the law to fully out Holloway, then Mark would do it gladly.

Knowing that most of his snooping would have to be done after hours, he went home and got some sleep before his attempted heist.  Plus, it involved one of the cleaning ladies who did not come into work until eight o’clock, so getting there too early would just be suspicious.  He was supposedly out sick after all.

At nine o’clock, Mark came strolling down the hall where the Internal Affairs office was located.  Right on time, he saw Lupe pushing her cleaning cart toward their door.

“Good evening, Lupe,” he said, coming up behind her.  

She turned around and saw the young man coming toward her.  Smiling, she greeted him back.  “Buenas noches, Mark!  I did not expect to see you this late.”

“Always busy in Homicide.”

“Big case?”

Mark nodded.  “You could say that.  Actually, you could even help me with it,” he told her, turning on the charm.

Lupe put her hand on her chest.  “Me?  How can I help you?”

“You clean Internal Affairs, don’t you?”

She nodded.

“All I need is to get in there and find something.  I don’t have keys, so I was hoping you could let me in.”

She looked at him, worriedly.  “Oh, I don’t know…”

“Trust me, this is just between you and me.  No one will know I was even in there.  And if anyone asks, I’ll tell them it was all my fault.”  He smiled.

Lupe just kept shaking her head and telling Mark that it was not a good idea to let him into an office that wasn’t his.  She needed her job.  He eventually resorted to telling her that he would go on a date with her granddaughter, whom she had been trying to set him up with for months.

When they got inside, he informed her that he wanted to get into Sergeant Holloway’s office.

“Oh Dios Mio...you are not working with that man, are you?”

“Um...I wouldn’t exactly put it that way, no.  Why?”

“He is...oh, how do you say it…?”

“Say it in Spanish,” Mark told her.

“Ese hombre es un completo lunático. Cree que estoy por debajo de él solo por que limpio su oficina. Ha intentado despedirme por que cree que urgo en su basura. ¡No me interesa lo que ese cerdo deseche!”

“Jerk.  He’s a jerk.”

“Si, a jerk.  I will gladly let you in his office.  Are you looking for something to fire him with?”

Mark chuckled.  “I’m not quite sure what I’m looking for, to be honest.  I appreciate the assist though.”  

After she unlocked his office door, Mark walked in and with his elbow flipped on the lights.  “Not exactly tidy, is he?” he commented after seeing files stacked all over the desk, along with coffee mugs and wadded up papers.

“No better than a pig.  One time I tried to dust his desk.  Again he accuses me of stealing!”  She let out an exasperated grunt.

“Well, I wouldn’t worry too much about him anymore, Lupe.  Can’t tell you why...but just don’t let him get to you anymore.”  Mark took a pair of rubber gloves out of his pocket.

Lupe looked surprised.

“Don’t want him to know I was here,” he answered, looking around the room.  “Look, why don’t you clean the office like you normally would.  It shouldn’t take me too long to find what I need.”

She nodded and turned to leave but stopped in her tracks.  “Can I get you in anywhere else?”

Mark, who had walked around Holloway’s desk, looked up and asked, “Why do you ask?”

“Just curious.  I do have keys to every door in the building you know.”

He laughed and started thumbing through the piles on the desk.  “Can you get into where they store the personnel files?”

She gave him a confused look, so he quickly explained what it was he was after.

“Oh!” she gasped.  “Well, yes, but I don’t normally clean that area.  It would look funny, no?”

“Who does clean there?”

“Rodrigo.”

“You let me take care of Rodrigo.  Just get me into the room, okay?”

Lupe nodded and went about her cleaning duties.  Mark gave his sole attention to the massive paper piles before him.  He let out an annoyed sigh but plugged away at every file and loose paper on the desk.  

Going on the assumption that even Holloway or Dickenson or whoever he was wasn’t stupid enough to leave incriminating evidence sitting out in plain site, Mark made quick work of the top of the desk and then turned his attention to the drawers.  They were even more cluttered than the rest of the desk, but amongst the discarded rubber bands, bent paper clips, and unusually large stash of Snickers, Mark found a small cardboard box filled with audio cassettes.  They weren’t marked, but they were hidden far back in a drawer and appeared to be purposely covered with useless junk, so he took them out of the drawer, hoping they were somehow incriminating.

He stood up and walked out into the squadroom.  He showed the tapes to Lupe and asked if she had seen a cassette player anywhere in the room.  She nodded and took him into an interrogation room where one sat on the table.  Sitting down, he took the cassettes out of the box, tried to see if there was any way to tell if they were in any specific order, and, upon not finding one, picked the one closest to him and played it.

It only took a minute of conversation for Mark to know that he had discovered a treasure, although this particular treasure scared the life out of him.  It was a conversation between Holloway and Margaret Johnson.  Initially, it was mostly Margaret crying about how she thought Steve got her daughter shot, and how he was harassing her after the fact.  As the conversation dragged on, it became frighteningly obvious to Mark that Holloway believed everything Margaret told him.  It was clear just how much Margaret hated Steve Keller, a man she had never even met.  At the end of the conversation, Holloway agreed to look into Steve for her and promised to let her know of any new developments.

Mark quickly pressed stop and wondered just how deep this whole scheme got.  He took the tape out of the player and looked all over for a date but did not find one.  No dates were present on any of the other tapes either.  Mark considered waiting until morning and handing the tapes off to the lab to see if they could figure out when they were recorded, but he had a feeling that there was not that kind of time.  He also didn’t feel like letting anyone else in on his investigation, so he put all the tapes back in the box and left the room.  

The next twenty minutes consisted of Mark negotiating a job swap between Rodrigo and Lupe - Personnel for one of Lupe’s offices.  Rodrigo was not as easily swayed by Mark’s charm, so it took a lot of finagling - and fifty bucks - to get the swap off the ground.  Once Lupe was finished with IA, she and Mark headed downstairs to Personnel and the file room.

Lupe was so nervous, she was sweating.  Mark tried reassuring her that she would not get in trouble, but she was not believing a word he said.  She finally agreed that if she just did the cleaning, nothing would cast suspicion on her, so she went about skittishly dusting and emptying trash cans while Mark surveyed the file room.  Seeing no security cameras or other devices used to prevent illegal break ins, he cautiously walked in and scanned the file cabinets for the one containing the sergeant’s file.  It took him several minutes and a few wrong cabinets, but he finally located the file on Sergeant…

“Delbert Holloway?  You pick your own first name, and you pick Delbert?”  Mark shook his head and started looking through the file.  

The man had created an impressive work history - commendations here, a medal or two there - with the Freeborn County, Minnesota Sheriff’s Department.  According to several letters of recommendation, Delbert was instrumental in discovering and stopping a drug-running operation that was using Interstate 35 to run drugs from Mexico up through the middle of the United States.  He also managed to clean up not only his department, but the sheriff’s departments of several adjacent counties.  Every letter praised him as the best officer they ever had - the best that ever existed.

“And no one could tell all this was fake?  Maybe they got too violently ill to care,” Mark thought aloud.  He set the fake letters and resume aside and dug further into the file.  After a thorough but disappointing search, he shoved all the papers back in the folder and placed it back in the cabinet just as he had found it.

_ I was sure there’d be some complaints against him in there _ , he thought.   _ Maybe this list of names will uncover something _ .  While searching the top of the desk, he had found a wadded up piece of notebook paper that had nothing but crossed out names written on it.  Mark knew none of the men listed on the paper, but it struck him as odd, so he took it with him just in case.  Now, he dug it out of his pocket and looked at the first name.  

“Howard Symons.  I wonder if you were a cop,” he muttered to the empty room as he looked over the filing cabinets again.  Finding the S’s, he dug through several folders until he got to the end, where he found a file on Howard Symons.

“I’ll be damned,” he said, pulling the folder out and looking through it.  A couple minutes of reading led him to learning that Howard Symons was a robbery inspector from 1960-1970, when he was fired for fraternizing with a suspect.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” he mumbled, reading the details of the investigation, which was led by one Sergeant Holloway.  From what Mark could glean from the transcripts, Inspector Symons sounded as guilty as Steve Keller,  but Holloway was able to railroad him off the force.

“What a fucker,” he muttered before moving on to the next name, Ralph Sitz.  His story was similar with the exception of the supposed crime - threatening a superior officer.  Again, Mark thought Holloway’s case against the man was weak, but it was enough to get Mr. Sitz his walking papers.

All down the line, Mark found officers, inspectors, and even a captain that had been investigated by Sergeant Delbert Holloway and subsequently thrown off the force for something that Holloway had done himself - sexual harassment, bullying, taking bribes...and dating suspects.  All the cases were flimsy, but somehow Holloway had gotten them pushed through.  

“Looks like Steve dodged a bullet...well, sort of.”  He sighed, put the last file away, and left the room.  Everything he had learned sounded as made up as Holloway, and Mark worried that Mike wouldn’t believe a word of it.  Then he looked down at the box of tapes he was carrying.  Mike may not believe the story of the witchhunts and lynchings, but he couldn’t deny the sound of Margaret Johnson’s voice.

He looked at his watch.  It was a little past eleven.  He wondered if he could get back to Omaha by morning.  This was something that needed to be done in person. 


	45. Chapter 45

**_Sunday, May 26, 1974_ **

The mother and daughter reunion was just as Steve had hoped.  They met Jeannie and Jasmine in the lobby of their hotel, and although Jasmine was hesitant at first to touch Amy because of the leg brace, her fears were quickly put aside in favor of love from her mother.  The two sat and, despite being in a public lobby, cried in each other's arms.  

Steve couldn’t help but smile as Amy sat and rocked Jasmine in her arms as if she were a much younger child.  It made him feel almost like a new father watching his wife cradle their newborn in the hospital - and he liked the feeling.  That made him pause momentarily and realize how much he had changed in the last month, but he knew it was a positive change.  He may not be able to carouse and be impulsive as much as he had in the past, but now he had two beauties to take care of - two girls who couldn’t live without him - and that was all he really wanted from life.  At almost thirty years old, he decided growing up wasn’t so bad after all.

After the initial hugs and tears, Steve introduced Amy and Karen to Jeannie and more hugs and tears came.  Jasmine told her mother all of the things she and Jeannie had done together, including how she had come to the Lynch’s house and taken her shopping.  This led to Jeannie telling Amy how deplorable Jasmine’s living conditions were, which then led to more tears and Amy thanking Jeannie profusely for her kindness.  

Mike called Steve over to discuss things with Garrett, the Koestlers, Tim, Ben (who was thoroughly enjoying watching the whole process of finding a fugitive), two Omaha police officers, and a Douglas County Sheriff’s Deputy.  Amy tried listening in and holding a conversation with Jeannie and Karen at the same time.  All she managed to overhear was something about Sergeant Holloway and had either Jack or Lilly seen him.  She had no idea why that lynch mob leader’s name had even come up, so eventually she gave up her eavesdropping and concentrated solely on Jasmine and Jeannie and a discussion on clothes shopping.  Steve would keep her in the loop about the case.

Jasmine sat up and looked Amy in the eyes.  “You’d be proud of me,” she stated confidently.

“I’m always proud of you, Sweetie,” Amy told her, brushing her hair away from her face.

“Oh...well, you’d be even prouder of me then.”

“Because of how you handled living in Arizona and then at the school in LA?”

Jasmine didn’t expect that answer either and paused momentarily as she thought of how to respond.  “Well, I meant you’d be proud that I took good care of Daddy.”  Then she quietly added, “I dunno about the other.”

Amy looked at her quizzically then looked over at Jeannie for clarification.  Jeannie shrugged, so Amy glossed over it and made a mental note to talk to Jasmine in private later.

“You took good care of Daddy, huh?  I’m glad!  What did you do?” 

“Oh, she made sure I ate well, slept enough...laughed occasionally.”  Steve knelt down beside Amy’s chair and placed his right hand lovingly on Jasmine’s head.  “We even sang together once.”

Jasmine giggled and grinned at Steve as she laid her head back on Amy’s chest.

Amy smiled at them both.  Jeannie added her own smile.  Steve had abandoned his self-destructive behavior once Jasmine was around, and both she and her father were grateful.  

Amy placed her hand on Steve’s shoulder.  “Thank you,” she said in a near whisper.

“Let’s wait until after your mother is safely put away before you thank me.  I don’t have the best track record on this case.” 

“Is that what you were talking about over there?  Do they have anything on her?”

Steve shook his head.  “No, but now every department from here to Atlantic is looking for her.  And Chief Garrett is looking into those cold cases that were in the newspaper.  He found what might have been the gun that shot Jesse in that barn you were in.”

“Really?  Where?”

“Up in the rafters.”

“It was right above me the whole time.  Did you show him the diaries?  Did you read them?”

Steve shook his head. “I only read your entries.”

“Show them to him!  You have them with you, don’t you?”

He nodded.  

“Have him read them!  She practically confesses to the murders!” Amy said insistently.  

“Okay, okay.  She really said she killed them?” he asked as he stood up.

“Not in so many words, but if you read between the lines...it’s pretty obvious.  The hatred she had for those two…”  She suddenly stopped breathing.

Steve knelt back down and looked at Jasmine.  “Princess, why don’t you go with Jeannie and Karen and get Mommy a glass of water or something?  Please?”

Jeannie leapt to her feet.  “Sure, we can do that.  Let’s go over there to the bar and get something.”

Jasmine looked worriedly at her mother but did what her father asked.  Once they were gone, Steve reminded Amy to breathe.

“I know what you’re thinking…”

“What?  What am I thinking, Steve?”  She sounded belligerent.

“Margaret killed those two guys because she hated them…”

“She felt like they wronged her, Steve!  Roy took her mother from her, and Jesse dumped her.  Instead of just being upset like normal people, she killed them!  You...she hates you for taking me away from her, right?  Isn’t that what we decided?  So she’s going to try and kill you!”

Steve put both his hands on Amy’s face.  “Honey, she’s had a month to try, and she hasn’t gone after me once.  Not once!  She’s gone after you, not me.  So I doubt she’s going to start now, especially with all these cops around.  She won’t get within ten feet of either one of us.”

“But that was before!”

“Before what?”

“Before...before she realized she’d lost me for good.”  She got quieter as the sentence went on.

Steve stood up and took a seat on the chair Jeannie had been in.  “What are you talking about?”

Amy looked down at her lap.  “You read everything I said?”

Steve nodded.  “Everything.”

“So then you know she had one demand.  If I had agreed to the demand, she would have let me go, taken me back to the hospital...whatever I wanted.”

“You could have gotten out of that?  And you didn’t?”  Steve sounded more indignant than he intended.

Amy looked up and scowled at him.  “I had two choices.  Stay there and die of dehydration...or get out and die of a broken heart.  Dehydration sounded better.  Maybe you wouldn’t have made the same choice,” she uttered resentfully.

Steve sat back, unsure of why she was suddenly angry with him.  

“She told me if I agreed to never see you again, she’d let me go.  And by never, she meant never...ever.  Oh, but she made sure to let me know that I could stay living in San Francisco...where I could always be close to you - her words.  Yeah...close enough to see you move on while I was being held prisoner by my sadistic mother.”  She turned and stared at the hotel entrance, watching as strangers wandered in and out without a care.   _ How would they feel if they had to watch the one person they loved more than anyone love someone else? _ she wondered.   _ I bet they’d want to stab themselves too. _

“Personally, dying in that barn sounded less painful.  Like I said though, maybe you would have felt differently.”

Steve got up, stood in front of her chair, and put out his hands.  “Stand up.”

She looked up at him with only her eyes.  “Why?”

“Because I said so.  Stand up.”

She sighed and put her hands out for him to take.  He pulled her up and onto her left leg and then held onto her around the waist for balance.

“Look me in the eyes and believe me when I tell you that if I had been given that choice...and knowing your mother...I would have done the same thing.  There is no way in hell that I want to watch you carrying on with any other guy.  I don’t even want to think about it.”

“I wouldn't have...you know...carried on.  I only want to carry on with you.”  Her demeanor softened.

“And I only want to carry on with you.  So I’m glad you made the choice you did.  Okay?  You believe me?”

Amy grinned slightly and nodded.  “I’m glad too.  Honest.  I mean, I guess it turned out okay anyway.  But I just have this bad feeling she’s...she’s going to make sure I die one way or the other.  If it’s by my own hand…”

Steve pulled Amy into a tight embrace and cradled her in his arms.  “Please...don’t talk like that, okay?” he whispered into her ear.

Amy felt tears from Steve’s eyes run down the side of her face.

“She’s not going to get either one of us.  I swear that to you.  Her days of killing the people she hates are over.”

“She finally met her match, huh?” Amy whispered back.

Steve let out a small chuckle.  “Yeah.  You don’t mess with San Francisco’s finest.”

“Mommy, we brought you some lemonade,” they heard a small voice say from below.  They looked down without letting go of each other.

“It’s good; I tried it.”  Jasmine smiled.

Amy reached out and took the glass from Jasmine.  “Thank you, Baby.”

“You drank her drink?” he asked Jasmine before looking at Amy.  “She becomes you more every day, food thief.”

Amy let out a chuckle which led to several coughs.  Steve told her to take a drink.

“Speaking of food...I don’t know about anyone else, but we all decided we’re a bit hungry,” Karen announced.

Steve looked at her and said, “You know, I don’t think I’ve eaten all day.  Not sure about Mike, but that’s a good idea.  Why don’t we just eat here at the hotel?”

* * *

 

During the dinner, where Steve and Amy were joined by Tim and the Lane siblings, the Stones, the Koestlers, and Chief Garrett, Amy made sure to show Garrett all of her mother’s writings.  He agreed that they were thinly-veiled confessions and would show them to the sheriff, who, with the discovery of the gun, was reopening the investigation into Jesse’s death.  He also told Amy that with the diary entries about Roy Dillingston, they may be able to actually find evidence on his murder as well.  Amy felt a small amount of relief.  She knew that if anyone caught her mother now, Margaret would automatically earn a one-way ticket to prison for her kidnapping, but she wanted justice for everyone, not just herself.

All through the dinner, after case discussions ceased, Mike took it upon himself to be the entertainment and lighten the mood.  Everyone made it known that they were grateful for the laughs and the momentary relief of their anxiety. 

Jasmine sat to her mother’s left while Steve sat to Amy’s right.  In between jokes and Mike’s war stories of life on San Francisco’s front lines, Jasmine jabbered on about every meal she and Steve ate and how he had taken her miniature golfing.  Steve noticed that she left out the part where she lost her cool.  He decided that all was for another time - a time when Amy was stronger mentally.  

Steve held on to Amy’s hand or had his arm around her waist most of the night, as if letting her go would make her disappear again.  His fussing over how much she ate and drank would have annoyed her at any other time, but she knew he was only concerned with her health.  Plus, she couldn’t help but laugh every time he would sneak food from his plate onto hers.  She figured if couples had “things” that were uniquely theirs, stealing food off each other’s plates must be theirs.  It made her feel good to have a “thing” with Steve.  All the fussing also made her wonder if she had been dead wrong about Steve’s lackluster kiss.  Maybe it wasn’t that there was another woman; maybe it was exhaustion.  She  _ had _ noticed him yawn several times during the meal.  Plus, she knew anxiety and how if a person is anxious for long periods of time, the relaxation that comes when the fear goes away makes one realize just how drained they really are.  She admonished herself for ever doubting Steve’s devotion.  

The self beating did not go unnoticed.  “You feel okay?” Steve asked her, while gently rubbing her neck.

She looked up from her plate.  “Hmm?”

“You look like you’re about to cry again.  Are you in pain?”

She shook her head.  “No.  I feel okay.  I think I’m just...tired.  I get tired easily thanks to the pneumonia.  The doctor said it could take a few weeks to get all my energy back.”

Steve smirked like he knew that wasn’t all.  “You wanna talk about it?”

“Talk about what?  Pneumonia?”

He shook his head.  “No, whatever you’re thinking about.”  

“How do you know I’m...never mind.  Maybe later.”

“You will tell me though, won’t you?  I don’t want you getting into the habit of keeping stuff to yourself.  Not with all that you’ve been through.”

She nodded ever so slightly.  “If you agree to the same.”    

Nothing came out of his mouth for a while, which made Amy wonder again if he was indeed keeping a woman secret.  One thing she was certain of was that something had happened while she was gone - something bad enough that Steve wanted it kept secret.

“Of course.  No secrets.”

They looked at each other in silence until Jasmine interrupted, informing Amy that she needed to use the restroom.

Jeannie volunteered to take her, but Amy insisted that she could.  Another habit she was disinterested in was becoming helpless and relying on others to raise her child.  It took longer than normal, but eventually Amy got up and on her crutches and followed Jasmine to the ladies’ room.

After Jasmine picked a stall and insisted she could go alone, Amy leaned up against the counter of sinks and sighed.  There were so many questions on her mind about the missing month of May, and the imaginary answers she came up with frightened her.  She didn’t want to be imagining all the scenarios her brain was concocting for how life had been for Steve in San Francisco, but her negativism didn’t allow for anything better.  Steve was holding something back, and she couldn’t imagine anything but another woman.  It’s not like he would kill someone or rob a bank in his grieved state.  Maybe his attention to her was a way to ease his guilt of doing something inappropriate with some mystery woman.

Sick of her brain bullying her, she suddenly blurted out, “So you and Daddy had fun, huh?  I’m glad he brought you here with him, Sweet Pea.”  Hearing about what a great dad Steve was turning out to be had to quiet the taunts, didn’t it?

“Yeah, we did things.  I think he didn’t want me to be sad because you were missing.”

“What did he tell you about me?”

“That he didn’t know where you were.  He said your mom took you somewhere but he and Grampa didn’t know where.  I told him that he would find you because superheroes always save people and get the bad guy.  I was right.”

Amy muttered, “Well, half right,” just as the toilet flushed.

Jasmine came out of the stall and went to the sink.  She couldn’t reach the soap, so Amy put some on her hand and gave it to Jasmine, who began rubbing it into her hands.

“So you two got along okay then?” Amy asked.

Jasmine nodded.  “Yeah.  Well, I got mad at him once...and he slapped me.  But he apologized!” she quickly added.

Amy opened her eyes wider.  “He slapped you?  Where?”  She couldn’t believe a man as seemingly gentle as Steve would slap her daughter.   

“Across my face.  It wasn’t really hard though...not like my other mom.”  She stood on her tiptoes and turned on the water.

“He hit you on the face?!”  Amy was livid.  “Why on earth would he do that?!”

Jasmine finished rinsing the soap off her hands and turned off the faucet.  She then pointed at the paper towels, which she also couldn’t reach.  Amy angrily pulled out several and shoved them toward the girl.

“Probably cuz I told him I hated him.”  She quickly dried her hands and threw the towels in the garbage.

“And why did you say that?”

“Because he went to meet the blonde lady instead of staying with me.”

Amy’s head dropped and she focused intently on her daughter’s eyes.  “What blonde lady?” she asked slowly and deliberately.

Jasmine saw a look on her mother’s face that she had only seen a couple times before, when the look was aimed at Janice after the woman had inflicted some sort of pain on her.  It was a look that alarmed Jasmine because she knew just how angry Amy got after the look.  Steve may have made a mistake, but it wasn’t one that required the kind of punishment Amy had laid upon Janice.  

“Um...I dunno, but it doesn’t matter!  No, cuz Daddy doesn’t like her anyway!  He told me so.  And she kissed him, he didn't kiss her.  Jeannie said he was just stressed out, which I think means he missed you a lot.  

“Anyways, things are okay because you're home.  Daddy will be happy now!  No more stress and stuff.  Jeannie said so.”

She looked pleadingly at Amy.  “Please don't yell at him.  He didn't do what they did.  Steve’s not like my other dad.  It was just one blonde...and he…”

“He what?”  Amy’s anger had subsided mostly out of confusion.  Jasmine’s words were making sense, but the context wasn't.

“I can trust him, can't I?  I mean, he doesn't lie like my old parents, does he?”

Amy paused; she really wasn't sure how to answer that anymore.  “Of course.  Steve loves you,” she finally answered.

“Okay.  He just...felt bad, that's all.  He didn't mean to hit me.  Please don't hate him.  He only loves you.”

Amy closed her eyes and tried to quickly make sense of Jasmine’s statements, but everything was too jumbled in Amy’s brain.  She sighed, opened her eyes, and placed her hand on Jasmine’s shoulder.  “I only love him too.”

Jasmine smiled.  “Good,” she said as she turned around and headed out the door.  

Amy stood and watched the door close.  “I can only hope he honestly feels the same way,” she said sadly.

 


	46. Chapter 46

**_Sunday, May 26, 1974_ **

Amy came out of the ladies’ room and found the entire crew standing around the cash register.  She took a deep breath and reminded herself not to jump to conclusions.  Jasmine may have been a great snoop, but her information was not always completely accurate.  She owed Steve a chance to explain.  If she wanted this relationship to work, she couldn’t immediately distrust him based on hearsay, and she wanted him to be her one and only for the rest of her life.

She hobbled over to Steve and stood next to him.  He immediately put his arm around her shoulders and rubbed her arm.

“You doing okay?  You need to sit down or anything?” he asked, genuinely concerned.

She simply shook her head and said, “No, I’m fine.  Painkillers are a wonderful thing.”

Tim, who had been talking to Mike, came over to the two while pushing Karen’s wheelchair.  “We’re gonna hang out with Mike and Jeannie for a while before going back to our hotel.  You guys are more that welcome to join us.”

Karen laughed and rolled her eyes.  “They just got back together after a month apart.  I’m sure hanging out with us is about the last thing they wanna do.”

Steve chuckled.  “Yeah, maybe tomorrow night, huh?”

Lilly walked over to Amy, so Steve walked Tim, Karen, and Ben out to the lobby.  Jasmine chose to stay by her mom.

“You know, I think Jack has found himself a new friend,” she told Amy, looking back at her husband and Mike laughing.

“Two veteran cops.  They have a lot in common,” Amy replied.  “You guys sticking around here tonight?”

Lilly turned back to Amy.  “No, we’re heading back to Atlantic just in case Margaret shows up again.”

“If she’s somehow figured out that Steve is here, she’ll stay in Omaha.”  She looked at the ground and closed her eyes.  

Lilly gave her a hug.  “Please don’t worry, Dear.  It sounds like every policeman in western Nebraska is looking for her.  I know she thinks she’s clever, but she’ll never escape them.  Trust me on this.”

Amy hugged her back and thanked her for all her support.  “You really didn’t have to take me in like you did.  I mean, we’re not related.”

“Blood isn’t the only thing that makes people family.  I tried to help your grandmother for years, and I know that deep down, despite all her mental issues, she was grateful.  I think Jack and I were like family to her.  After she was gone, I looked at your mother and aunt like my own children.  I worried about them for many years.  You showing up here lifted a thirty year old weight off my shoulders, honestly.  Besides, what grandmother can’t use more grandkids?”

Amy smiled.  Grandparents were never something she’d had in her life, even on her father’s side, and it felt kind of nice to have them now.  It made her feel like maybe she would have a normal family for once.  She thanked Lilly once more and then wandered out to the lobby to find Steve.  Everyone else soon followed until the entire group was in the lobby.  

Lilly said goodbyes to her other two new grandchildren - Karen and Ben - and then she and Jack headed out, saying they would likely be back in the morning.  Jack couldn’t keep himself out of this investigation.  

After saying a final goodbye to the Koestlers and watching as Tim, Karen, Ben, and Jeannie headed up to Jeannie and Mike’s room, Amy turned and found Steve entranced by something in the lobby.  She tried to follow his gaze, but all she could see was a large group of people who had just gotten off a bus and gathered at the far end of the room.  He couldn’t have known any of the people, but he seemed quite focused on something, or someone, in that vicinity.  

She looked down at Jasmine and suggested that they go get Steve and head upstairs.  Jasmine ran ahead and shocked Steve out of his trance as she grabbed onto his leg.  He shook his head to clear the fog and picked her up while Amy made her way over.

“You alright?” Amy asked, taking a stab at getting him to talk.

“Yeah, why?” he asked.

“You just seemed...I dunno...focused on something.”

He snickered.  “Oh.  Yeah, I was just thinking about the case and things.”  He looked over Amy’s shoulder and narrowed his eyes.  Amy took a deep breath and pretended not to notice.

“Say, I want to talk to Mike for a minute.  Why don’t you two head up to the room.”  He put Jasmine down, dug into his pants’ pocket, and pulled out his room key.  “It’s 225,” he said, handing the key to Jasmine.

“If it’s about my mom, I should be in on it.  I want to know what’s going on,” she whined slightly.

Steve put his hands on the side of her face and looked in her eyes.  “Honey, you’ve been through enough with Margaret.  I don’t want you to have to worry about her anymore.  You let me do that.  You just take Jasmine upstairs and relax, okay?  I’ll be up in a minute.”  He then kissed her lightly on the forehead.    

Amy pretended like he was right in saving her from the grief by nodding and turning toward the elevators.  She had a good feeling that he wasn’t going to be talking to Mike, but she was too tired and pained to think of a way to stick around the lobby and spy on him, so she sighed and headed toward the elevators, walking past a bottle blonde sitting seductively in a chair.

Jasmine, who trailed her mother by a few feet, turned and glared at the woman, who was wearing a very low-cut red party dress.  The woman tried staring back at the six year old, but she soon grew uncomfortable and looked around the lobby.  Jasmine let out a tiny evil chuckle.

Amy had to hurry Jasmine along so that she didn’t miss the elevator.  Then she noticed what was keeping her daughter.  When the girl finally did get into the elevator just as the doors were closing, she clearly saw Steve approach the woman - and the woman toss her hair back, smile, and stand up to greet him.

When the elevator doors were closed, Amy, looking straight ahead, asked with clenched teeth, “That lady you were staring at...is she the blonde?”

“Mmm hmm.  Stupid dirty blondes,” Jasmine growled.

Amy quickly put her hand on the “open door” button.  “Sweet Pea, this will just be between you and me, okay, and normally I wouldn’t ask you to do this because, well, I really don’t like it when you listen in on other people’s conversations...but…”

“You want me to spy on Daddy?” she asked excitedly.

“Just please don’t get caught.”

Jasmine smiled like the Cheshire Cat and bolted out of the elevator.  She immediately saw that Steve was dragging the woman outside, so she ran in between the crowd and toward the front entrance.  Amy got off the elevator and took a seat in a nearby chair.   _I can’t believe I’m turning my daughter into a spy_ , she thought.   _I’m the worst mother ever_.

* * *

 

Steve stormed over to Kathryn, who tossed her hair back as she stood up.  “I was hoping you’d notice me,” she purred.

Steve grabbed her arm and practically dragged her out of the lobby, looking over his shoulder the entire time.  He prayed that Mike would stay distracted by Chief Garrett and not notice him with Kathryn.  

Once outside, he turned Kathryn around violently and almost threw her into the wall.  “What the hell are you still doing here?  I thought I made it pretty clear that I don’t want you around.”

“Was that Amy?  That was the girl you’d rather be with?  She looks like she could blow away with a gentle breeze.  No figure and not very pretty…”

Steve grabbed Kathryn’s face with his right hand and squeezed her cheeks together.  “Shut up.  Just shut up.  Don’t make me do something I’ll regret.”  

“Aren’t you already?  You know, with her?” she spit out.

Steve dropped his hand angrily and glared at Kathryn.  “Did you stick around just to get a look at your supposed competition?  I didn’t make it clear enough that I wanted nothing to do with you and everything to do with her?”

“Maybe I did want to get a look at her.  Really Steve?  You...you’re a very good looking guy, and you could have any young, vivacious, beautiful woman in the world.  Yet, you insist you’re in love with some woman who looks so common, she could blend in with the wallpaper?  I mean, she’s not the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen, but…”

Steve began laughing.

“What’s so funny?” she asked, insulted.

“You,” he said as he continued to laugh.  “I guess I never realized it before because, well, I was probably a little shallow myself, but you are, beyond a doubt, the most superficial woman I have ever met.  Is that all you’re concerned with?  Looks?  Outward appearances?  I guess I should have noticed that earlier by the way you’re dressed.”

She looked down at herself.  “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” she snarled.

“You look like a cheap hooker,” he stated bluntly.  “And your brain thinks about as deeply as one.”

She narrowed her eyes and shot him daggers.

“Do you not care about personalities?  Deep spiritual connections?  Someone who knows you inside and out, knows all your flaws, and still loves you like you’re perfect?  Or are you just looking for something to stare at?  Get a painting; it’d be cheaper.  Or better yet, get a mirror, Narcissus.”

Kathryn’s face was turning red.  “I suppose you think Amy and you have some sort of ‘spiritual connection’ or something?  You form that in the week you knew each other?”  She chuckled derisively.

“Yes.  Yes we did.  Because we talked to each other.  Really talked.  I learned enough about that woman in a week to know that I want to learn everything I can about her, and I hope it takes the rest of my life to learn it all.  The little I do know though is enough to show me that inside, she’s the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.  Caring, loving, intelligent...and yeah, I think she’s pretty damn cute too.”

He paused before he added, “Maybe someday you’ll know what it feels like to meet your soulmate.  And then again…I’d kinda hate to meet a guy like that.”

Mike was walking Garrett out to the parking lot when he noticed Jasmine standing just outside the entrance with her head as close to the corner of the building as she could get it.  He leaned down and whispered to her, “What are you doing?”

She put her right index finger up to her lips.

“Where’s Steve?” he whispered back.

She pointed around the corner.

Mike then pointed toward the entrance and told her to go back inside.  She tried quietly protesting, but Mike just kept pointing toward the door.  She huffed and ran back inside.  He then walked around the corner and found his partner and Kathryn Castro having a tense staredown.

“What are you doing out here, Steve?  I thought you’d gone upstairs.”

Steve, without turning toward Mike, told him, “Just taking out some trash, Mike.”

Mike nodded.  “You know, why don’t I finish that job?  I have a thing or two I’d like to discuss with Miss Castro.  Besides, don’t you have a couple ladies waiting for you?”

Steve grinned.  “Yes I do.”  He turned, patted Mike on the shoulder, shook Garrett’s hand, and started to leave, but he suddenly felt like he needed to add something.

“Oh, Kathryn, one more thing.  Don’t you even think about doing anything to Amy.  You won’t like the outcome.  Have a nice night.”

* * *

 

Jasmine ran toward the elevators and saw Amy sitting down closeby.

“Did you hear anything interesting?” she asked her daughter a bit too eagerly.

Jasmine stood by the side of the chair and leaned over on the armrest.  “He really doesn’t like her...and I don’t think she likes you either.  She said you weren’t very pretty and you looked like wallpaper.  What does _that_ mean?” she asked, scrunching up her nose.

This was turning out a lot like Amy had hoped it wouldn’t.  This woman wouldn’t be insulting her unless she was after something Amy had, like her boyfriend.

“I don’t know.  What else did you hear?”

“Daddy called her a hooker.  I don’t know what that is either.”

Amy tried not to laugh.  “It’s not a compliment.  Anything else?”

Jasmine nodded.  “Yeah, but I don’t remember everything.  Daddy uses a lot of big words.”

“Smart people do that.  You’ll learn them someday.”

“He said you were smart, so you probably know what they are.”

“Daddy called me smart?” Amy asked for clarification.

“Uh huh.  He said intelligent, but I know that means smart.  He also said caring, loving, and cute,” she said, counting the words off on her fingers.  “Actually he said ‘pretty damn cute.’ “

Amy put her finger up to her daughter’s mouth.  “Don’t say that word.  Daddy said all those things about me?  Not about the blonde?”

Jasmine shook her head.  “Does that mean he loves you?”

Amy smiled.  “Yeah, I think so.”   _If I can just get him to admit to something_ , she thought.

Just then, Steve walked by them and to the elevators.

“Hey, you’re not just gonna leave us here, are you?” Amy called out to him.

He swung around and was shocked to see them.  “I thought I told you two to go upstairs?”

Amy shrugged as she tried to get out of the chair by herself.  Steve grabbed her right hand and pulled her up.  “I just felt like waiting for you.  Is that okay?”

He smiled at her.  “Yeah, it’s just fine.”


	47. Chapter 47

**_Sunday, May 26, 1974_ **

They walked into the room and Amy stopped to take it all in.  “This may sound stupid, but this is the greatest thing I’ve seen in a month.”

Jasmine skipped ahead and got up on her bed.  She started bouncing up and down happily.

“And what would that be?” Steve asked, leaning up against the dresser that was in front of the beds.

“This.  This room.  A real bed, a real bathroom, a TV that isn’t hanging on a wall,” she explained as she gazed around the modestly-furnished hotel room.  She then turned to Steve and said, “The last time I laid in a real bed was yours back in April.  It seems like a million years ago...a million pains...a million miles.”

Steve smirked.  He remembered that last bed time like it was yesterday, but she was right - it also seemed like a million years in the past.  It had been so long since he had held her that night, taken in the sweet smell of her perfume and the subtle fragrance of her shampoo.  Forever since he’d felt her velvety smooth skin against his, or felt her soft lips caressing various parts of his body.  He chuckled to himself, also remembering that it had been a long time since she had awkwardly asked if she was doing something wrong every couple minutes.  He had laughed and assured her that she was doing just fine for a beginner.  Anything she was missing he would be more than happy to teach her in subsequent classes.

The comforting memory was quickly shattered when he remembered hers were not the last set of lips to touch his.  He sighed sadly then shook his head and tried to keep his composure.  The last thing Amy needed to find out now was that he’d cheated on her.

“Well, for hotel beds, they’re actually comfortable.  She seems to like them,” he said, pointing at Jasmine.

Amy looked at her child and smiled.  “Little jumping bean.”

“Mommy, can we watch TV all night?  Can we have ice cream?  And cake!  You have ice cream and cake when you celebrate things.”

She hobbled over to Jasmine’s bed and plopped down on it.  “Maybe tomorrow.  Right now, someone has a date with a bathtub.”

Jasmine’s smiled turned upside down.  “Me?  But I’m clean!”

“Your hair is an oily mess.  Go grab your PJ’s and meet me in the bathroom.”

Jasmine reluctantly got off the bed and began rummaging through her suitcase.  “Can I use the strawberry bubble bath?” she asked.

“You brought bubble bath with you?  Sure,” Amy replied, taking a deep breath so she could work through the pain of standing up.

Jasmine handed her the bubble bath and skipped off to the bathroom with pajamas in her hand.  

“You need help?” Steve asked.

Amy paused.  “Probably,” she answered sadly.

Steve stood up and walked over to her.  “It’s okay to ask for help, you know.”  He put his arm around her and supported her weight as she tried to walk into the bathroom.  “Besides, if you’re completely helpless and can’t walk anywhere, then I’ll just have to carry you.”  He smiled at her.

“That sounds exhausting,” she said seriously.  

He replied by picking her up, carrying her into the bathroom, and setting her down on the toilet.  She rolled her eyes. 

“Yeah, so exhausting,” he told her sarcastically before turning on the water in the tub.

Jasmine, who had stripped down to an undershirt and panties, knelt down and leaned beside the tub.  “Daddy, can I listen to the radio?” she asked as she watched strawberry-scented bubbles form.  

“Honey, we don’t have a radio here,” Amy answered.

“I do too.  It’s in my suitcase.”

Amy looked up at Steve, who simply shrugged and left to retrieve the item.  Soon enough Jasmine crawled into the tub, and Steve wandered in carrying a transistor radio.

“You snuck that out of your house?” Amy asked.  

Jasmine just shrugged and continued with her tub activities.  Steve turned on the radio and found a station Jasmine liked - one that was playing hits from the last ten years.  He then set the radio on the counter and excused himself from the room.  Amy told Jasmine she’d be back to help her wash her hair and left as well, seeing this as her only opportunity to talk to Steve in private.

Without the crutches, walking was almost impossible due to the shooting pains radiating out from her knee.  The four steps she took out of the bathroom took her breath away and caused tears to form.  Once outside the bathroom, she closed the door and leaned against the wall.  She wiped tears from her eyes and looked up to see Steve undressing.  He had one leg up on the dresser.

“You brought a gun?” she asked him, watching him take a holster off his ankle.

He didn’t look up.  “Yeah.  It’s kind of second nature.  Plus, I didn’t know what we’d run into out here.”

Amy nodded.  “Makes sense.  Did you, uh...did you plan on using it?”

He unloaded the gun and threw it and the bullets into his suitcase.  Then he looked up at his girlfriend.  “If I had to, yeah. How ‘bout you?”

She looked at him, confused.  “Where would I have used your gun?”

He shook his head.  “I mean, would you have killed your mother, given the opportunity?”

She laughed like his question was the most ridiculous thing imaginable.  

“You seemed pretty angry in that diary.  You wanted to burn the barn down just to watch her die with it.  You wanted a weapon so you could kill her right there!  So I ask, now that you’re better and you’re here with us...are you still that angry?”

Amy saw the worry all over his face, but the question still made her mad.  “Why...does that scare you or something?  You think I’m gonna kill you in your sleep?”

Steve rolled his eyes as Amy attempted to make it to his bed to lie down.  He tried to offer her assistance, but she angrily waved him off, preferring to suffer through the pain.  

He sighed.  “No, that’s ridiculous.  I was just very surprised at the amount of anger you had.  I’m sorry if I saw you as a some kind of sweet pacifist.”

She managed to make it to the bed and flop down on her back, wincing in pain.  “And just exactly what did you expect?  You think I should have just taken all this and laughed it off?” she asked, her eyes closed.

“Of course not, but I didn’t expect homicidal rage.”

She opened her eyes and shot him a dirty look.  “She kidnapped me and held me in an abandoned barn fifteen hundred miles from home simply because she didn’t like whom I chose to date.  She tried starving me to death!  I found out she had killed two men.  Actually, I thought she’d killed three!  There really isn’t any telling how many other lives she’s ruined, so yeah, I thought she deserved to die.  I kinda still do, because she won’t leave us alone, even if she’s in jail!”

She closed her eyes again, holding them tightly shut to try and prevent her tears from escaping.  “I’m sorry if my caring about you so much that I’d avenge your death makes you think I’m some sort of psychopath.”

He sighed and took a seat on Jasmine’s bed so he was facing Amy.  “Babe, I don’t think you’re a psychopath.  I was just...surprised, that’s all.  And sad.  Sad that you’d even been put into a situation to get that angry.  I shouldn’t have even seen that side of you, because you shouldn’t have had to be so…”

He punched the bed.  “I’m just sorry it got to that.  I pretend like I know you so well, but the truth is I don’t really know anything.  I don’t know how much anger toward your mother you’ve been burying over the years.  I don’t even know half of what you’ve lived through, yet I expected you to just take this all in stride or something.  I don’t know…”

Amy sat up slowly.  “How long have you been doing this job?” she asked.

“About four years, give or take.”

“In those four years, I bet you’ve seen a lot of stuff that made you angry.  Maybe it wasn’t at all personal, but you just got so mad that you lashed out...no?”

He ran his fingers through his hair and let out a breath.  “Yeah...more than once unfortunately.  After Paul took you...when Mike and I got to my apartment, we saw what he’d written on the bathroom mirror.  I lost it and ended up destroying my own living room.”

“He wrote something on the bathroom mirror?  What was it?”

“She’s mine...written in blood.”

Amy shivered.  “I had no idea.  Was it my blood?” she asked, looking down at herself, wondering how Paul would have stolen her blood.

Steve shrugged.  “Then one of the officers asked me if you may have let Paul into the apartment.  I snapped and almost punched the guy.”

She gave him a sad little smile.  “Snapped.”

He nodded.  “Not my proudest moment.  And not the first time I’ve done that either.  Guess I have no room to talk about tempers, do I?”

“Steve...we’re all at risk of snapping.  There’s only so much the human brain can handle.  When it gets too much…”  She snapped her fingers.  “Doesn’t make us bad people...unless we make it a habit.”

He looked down at the floor.  “You’re right.”

“Doesn’t mean that if she came waltzing in here right now, I wouldn’t shoot her right in the head if I had to.  If she ever tried to hurt you or Jasmine…  Like I said before, she pushed me too far this time.”

Steve got up and stood in front Amy.  He again put his hands on the sides of her face which told her one thing - he wasn’t going to kiss her on the lips yet again. 

“I’d promise you that it won’t happen again, but I’ve broken too many promises already.  Just know I love you.”

She was right.  He placed a gentle kiss on her forehead and then attempted to walk away, but Amy grabbed his arms.

“Then why won’t you kiss me?” she asked, tinges of sadness and annoyance in her voice.

He pulled back from her and gave her a curious look.  “What are you talking about?  I just kissed you.”

“Sure.  You kissed my forehead.  You’ve kissed my cheek.  You've kissed the top of my head. But you haven’t kissed me on the lips once.  Do I have cooties or something?”

He walked back toward the dresser and began unbuttoning his shirt.  “Then what was that at the hospital?”

“A passionless kiss involving one person.  I might as well have kissed a pillow,” she stated bluntly.

He stopped unbuttoning his shirt and dropped his hands to his hips.  “So sorry I was trying to not hurt you,” he snapped.

“Steve, my face healed weeks ago.”  She pushed herself off the bed, stood up, faced him, and asked, “This has to do with that blonde in the lobby, doesn't it?”

He whipped around and stared at her.  “I don't know what you're talking about,” he muttered quickly.

“Jasmine told me a fun little story in the bathroom downstairs.  She told me she got really mad at you because you were going to leave her to meet some blonde.  She told you she hated you and you slapped her across the face.”

Steve sat half on the dresser and put his face in his right hand while his left arm sat across his stomach.

“It was a mistake, and I told her I was sorry, okay?  Can we just drop it?”

“Then she said things were okay though because this lady kissed you, you didn't kiss her.  You were just stressed and you don't like her anyway.  Is that why you won't kiss me?  Because you kissed someone else?”

He said nothing, but Amy could see he was tensing up.  He had made a fist with his left hand, and it was turning a few shades of white and red.

“Half an hour ago you agreed that we'd have no secrets.  I'm holding you to that.  Steve, just tell me what happened!”

He responded by kicking the dresser and shoving a lamp off the top before standing up and punching the wall.  He was now 0 for 2 in fights with walls.  Not wanting to show Amy his pain, he leaned his face against the wall.

Amy slowly made her way over to Steve.  Standing behind him, she said, “At dinner, while you were distracted by something Mike was saying, Jeannie told me something.  She told me she was enormously grateful I was alive, not only for the obvious reasons, but also because she was afraid of what you’d do if you never saw me again.

“I forced her to tell me what happened.  She told me you drank a lot, didn't sleep, snapped at everyone...you even took my Valium.  Basically, Steve...you were a mess.  You thought I was dead at one point, so you were grieving, and you know what grieving people do?  Anything to kill the pain.  Anything.  Cheat, lie, steal, drink, do drugs, have promiscuous sex, seek revenge…”

“And that somehow makes it alright?  I was in pain, so I cheated on my girlfriend, got drunk, and drove my car into a crowd of people.  But it's okay, because I was grieving,” he said acerbically.  He turned around and faced Amy.  “You don't honestly believe that, do you?  It’s a copout.”

She took his reinjured right hand and held it between both of hers.  “First of all, you didn't do anything that bad.  Second, there are obviously different degrees of acts, but knowing why someone did what they did goes a long way in forgiveness.  I kissed another woman because I was beside myself with grief is more forgivable than I kissed another woman because I'm a louse.”

“How do you know what I did wasn't that bad?”

“Okay, I guess I don't...so tell me!  I need to hear the truth, Steve!  Neither one of us will ever heal if we don't get it out.  I swear to you, I won't be mad,” she said gently.  “I just want you to feel better.”

He closed his eyes and said nothing for a very long time, irritating Amy.  She still couldn’t get him to tell her the truth, which made her begin to wonder just how bad this was.  She had assumed that a kiss was just a kiss, but maybe it wasn’t.  After all, they’d progressed from a kiss to something much more in a short time, so who was to say it couldn’t happen with someone else?  But could she forgive more than that?  She began doubting herself, which made her even angrier.  

She dropped his hand and shuffled over to where her crutches were laying on the floor.  Bending over, she picked them up and headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” Steve asked, opening his eyes and seeing what was happening.

Amy replied without turning around.  “If you can’t trust me enough to tell me the truth, then forget it.  Forget you!  I thought I knew you well enough to trust you, and I thought you trusted me, but I guess I was wrong.  No surprise there really.  I never have had good sense when it came to men...or anything.”

He pushed himself off the wall and trotted over to Amy, who had made it halfway to the door.  “Please don’t leave me,” he murmured sadly.

She turned her head and growled, “Then trust me!  Have enough faith in me to tell me the truth!  Because right now...all your silence is doing is making you look guilty as hell.”  She paused and muttered, “And I don’t know if I can handle that.”

Tears were starting to fall down her cheeks, and Steve knew he had no choice but to tell the truth and face whatever anger Amy threw his way.  Whatever it was would not be as bad as having her walk out on him.

He turned and began pacing between Amy and the window.  “We got into town yesterday afternoon.  While we were checking in, I ran into a woman who...who had…”  He took a deep breath and looked at the floor.  “She’d been a victim in a case Mike and I were investigating.”

He looked up and tried to gauge her reaction to that statement.  Would she immediately jump to the conclusion he thought she would?

She looked up at the ceiling.  “I have a feeling I could finish the story of your history, but I don’t think I really want to, to be honest.”  Biting her lip, she made her way to Jasmine’s bed, where she sat down and laid back, crossing her arms over her stomach.

“Well, you’re wrong...partially,” Steve told her.

“So you didn’t have a relationship with this woman?”

He sighed and mumbled, “That’s not the part you’re wrong about.”  He sat at the end of his bed and stared at the wall.

“You don’t make this a habit, do you?”

“This is part of why I didn’t want to tell you!  You talk about trust out of one side of your mouth, but then you say things like that out of the other.”

“Don’t get mad at me.  You have to admit that it kind of sounds like a pattern, and I don’t want to…”

“Want to what, Amy?”

She shook her head.  “Ruin everything.  You’re right.  I’m sorry.  I’m being hypocritical.  Go on.  I’ll try harder, I promise.”

“Two times doesn’t make a pattern, you know.  Just a bad coincidence.  I mean, not bad...just...dammit, it was two years ago!  I don’t want to get into this right now.”

“Okay...okay.  Just tell me what happened yesterday...whatever is bothering you now.  You ran into this woman…” she prompted.

“In the lobby.  We hadn’t seen each other since the case, so we talked a little about that, but then she suggested we get together for drinks sometime while we were both here.  I thought maybe she could tell me how she managed to get over what she went through because, well...it was similar to what you’re going through.”

Amy winced.   _ I knew it _ , she told herself then reminded her brain that it was supposed to be working on trusting Steve.

“Mike was furious, thinking that I was cheating on you or something.  That made me mad, because all I wanted to do was talk.  Made me so mad that I felt like I had to prove to him that Kathryn was just...nothing.  And then I saw all those pictures Jasmine drew.”

“What pictures?”

Steve got up and walked to the table where all of Jasmine’s art work laid.  He picked it up and carried it over to Amy, setting the pile on her stomach and then sitting at the end of his bed once again.

She picked up the pile and looked through it while Steve continued.

“Not only did she draw all these disturbing scenes of death and murder, but she drew me not saving you two.  It...it scared me and upset me at the same time.  Her anger is just…”

“Deeper than you realized?” Amy asked while looking at the portrait of the dead blondes.

“Yeah.  I just suddenly had to get out of the room.  Kathryn called and I decided to go have a drink with her instead.  Jasmine was livid; she kept begging me to stay, and when I didn’t, she called me a jerk and compared me to Carl.”

“That’s when you slapped her, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever regretted anything more in my life.  After that, all I could think about was how much I needed you here.  None of this would have happened if you’d have been here.  I sat down at that bar and tried to drink enough to somehow turn Kathryn into you.  Hell, she did order the same drink you did on our first date.”

Amy dropped the pictures to the side and turned her head toward him.  “You remember what I ordered?  I don’t even remember that.”

“Of course I do.  I remember everything about that night.”  He laid back on the bed and stared at the ceiling.  

“I just...I so badly wanted to be sitting there with you that when she leaned in and kissed me…”  He reached behind him and angrily grabbed a pillow and threw it at the wall before putting his hands over his face.

“What happened after that?” Amy quietly asked.

Through his hands, Steve replied, “Nothing.  I got mad at myself and left.  She kept trying to go after me, but I just…”  He let out a frustrated scream.  “I ended up slapping her too.”

She wanted to say, “That’s it?” and ask him why he was so damn infuriated, but she knew that would probably just upset him more.  Plus, it was honestly sweet that he felt so bad for kissing another woman.  So instead, she tried to get up and go to his bed.

A pain shot down her leg, so instead of getting up, she looked at Steve and said, “Come over here.”

He shook his head.

“Look, I’d come over there, but it’s a hell of a lot easier for you to get up than me, so get your ass over here.”

Steve, surprised at her insistence, sat up and looked at her suspiciously.

“Do I have to beg?  Get over here and lay down.”

Doing as he was told, he got up, walked to the other bed, and lay down beside Amy.  Much to his surprise, she rolled over and wrapped her arms around him.

“So all this time, you’ve been feeling guilty for kissing this Kathryn person, right?  You thought you were cheating on me, and that I’d be mad at you for it?”

“Obviously,” he said, his eyes shut tight.

She put her hand on his face and turned his head toward her.  “Look at me.”

He did and she stared right into his green eyes.  “Why would I be mad about that?”  She grinned.

“Why would you not?!” he snapped.

“Oh I don’t know.  Maybe because you wished it had been me...you felt really bad about it...did I mention you would have rather been kissing me?”

“It didn’t mean a thing, I swear.  I didn’t even like it.”

“At one point you did though, right?  Years ago?”

Steve tried to look away, but Amy turned his head back toward her.

“But you don’t now because of me.  Right?  How could I not be flattered by that?”

“Flattered?” he asked as if she were losing it.

“Like I said before, grieving people do a lot of crazy things.  But you know what, Steven Keller?”

“Hmm?”

“I love you and appreciate you telling me the truth.”

“You’re not mad?  At all?”

She snickered.  “Would I rather you not have kissed some ex?  Well, yeah, but I do doubt that you’re going to leave me for a woman you called a hooker.”

“Wha...how’d you know that?”

Amy smiled at him.  “Since we’re working on being totally honest...I have to admit that I may have sent my personal snoop to eavesdrop on you and her earlier.”

“So that’s why you were still in the lobby!”

“I...I’m insecure.  Sue me!  But how else would I have found out that you think I’m smart and cute?”  She giggled.

“Actually, what I said is pretty damn cute.”

“Oh, I know.  She told me word for word.  The little twerp will pretty much repeat every bad word you say.”

They both laughed.  

“I really am sorry, but I missed you so much,” Steve reiterated.  “And Kathryn...I feel nothing for her.  Less than nothing.  I never loved her like I love you.”

“I’ll forgive you...if you kiss me for real this time.”

Steve smirked.  “Gladly,” he said before pressing his lips to hers.  Out came the warmth and spine-tingling passion Amy had been longing for.  No more dead fish or polite kisses.  Those had officially and forever been replaced with the intoxicating euphoria that happened when these two vastly-different people, who met incidentally when neither was looking and on one of the worst days of their lives, became one.

Amy moaned softly as Steve released himself from the kiss.  “Better?” he asked.

“Mmm.  It was take my breath away better,” she answered, taking a labored breath and laying her head on Steve’s chest.  That was followed by several attempts at deep breaths, none of which were successful.

Steve sat himself and Amy up.  “You seriously can't breathe, can you?” he asked, starting to panic.

“I'm fine.  Honest,” she wheezed.

He jumped up anyway and started rummaging through the goody bag the doctor had given Amy before she left the hospital.  In it was a rescue inhaler the doctor told Steve she might need.  The combination of the pneumonia and the lung surgery had reeked havoc on her stamina and breathing, making the inhaler a necessary precaution.

“Use it,” Steve said, handing her the device.  She shook her head but took it anyway.

After taking a puff, she groaned, “I hate that thing.  I'm not even asthmatic.”  She lay back down and steadied her breaths.

“I ruined the moment,” she whispered sadly, closing her eyes.

He leaned over and kissed her ear while telling her, “You didn't ruin anything.  It’ll get better.  We just need to be patient.”

She yawned.  “Ever since the pneumonia, I have no energy to do anything for more than a couple minutes, but even if I did have stamina, expending any amount of energy seems to trigger these stupid attacks.  They said it's normal, but it's so frustrating.  How am I going to raise her in this condition?”

Steve smiled.  “Where did that come from?”

“What?”

“That positive attitude!  I didn't expect you to assume you'd get custody.”

She sat up slowly.  “Maybe you're rubbing off on me?”

Though they could both hear Jasmine’s radio, neither had paid any attention to it - until now.  They looked at each other as the first notes of “I Only Want to be With You” drifted through the air.

“Would you care to dance?” Steve asked her, grinning from ear to ear.

She laughed.  “I may actually fall into your open arms,” she answered, trying to slide off the bed.

Steve helped her get up on her feet and held her tightly.  “Whatever gets you in them.”

Amy laid her head on his chest, nestled her head under his chin, and smiled.  “Sorry I turned a romantic moment into a medical emergency.”

“Stop apologizing.”  He paused before hesitantly asking, “Are we okay now?”  He held her tightly and gently swayed her back and forth.

“Mmm hmm.  Just don't kiss any other girls.”

“There goes all my fun,” he joked.

The bathroom door opened and out came a towel-clad kindergartener, her hair damp and uncombed.  “Dancing!” she shouted excitedly before running over and hugging Steve and Amy’s legs, swaying to the music with them.

They both looked down and smiled.  “How about this girl?  See, I kind of have a thing going with her too.” Steve said, reaching down and picking her up.  “It’d break her heart if I left her, and I’m not a heartbreaker.”

“You’re not, huh?”  She looked at him sideways before adding, “Hmm...well, I guess I could share you with her.  She is pretty cute,” she said, tickling Jasmine’s tummy and making her laugh.

Steve smiled.  “I think we make a pretty good trio,” he said as he kissed Jasmine on the cheek.


	48. Chapter 48

**_Monday, May 27, 1974_ **

The phone that rested on the nightstand between the two beds began to ring.  It didn’t bother Mike, who had been awake since 6:30 and was ready to go downstairs and talk to the deputy in the lobby.  Jeannie on the other hand…

“Aw, Mike.  Why??” she whined, disgusted at being woken up at such an early hour.

“Oh,” he grumbled back at her, annoyed at her constant need for beauty sleep.

Mike answered the phone with a cheery hello.  Jeannie groaned and threw the covers over her head.

_“Lieutenant, it’s Mark Stilwell.  Sorry for calling you so early.  Well, it’s early here anyway.  Or late.  I haven't been to bed yet.  Can’t sleep anyway.”_

“I’m surprised you’re calling already.  Did you find something?” Mike answered.

_“Plenty,”_ he muttered.   _“To be honest, I think you should hear this all in person, but I couldn’t get a flight out of here that arrived there any earlier than three in the afternoon.  I didn’t want this to wait that long.”_

“It’s that serious, huh?” Mike answered, sitting down on the bed.  He suddenly had a feeling this would be a long conversation.

At the word “serious”, Jeannie threw the covers off her head and turned toward her father.

Mark let out a held-in breath.   _“Yeah, I think it is.  See, I found some cassette tapes that Holloway made.  I took them home and have been listening to them all night.”_

“Tapes...of what?”

_“Conversations between_ _him_ _and Margaret Johnson.  Mike, she’s behind this whole thing.  Not that Holloway is in any way innocent, but I’m not so unsure that it wouldn’t have turned out differently had she not gotten involved.”_

“How _did_ she get involved?  I’m not following.”

_“So Steve would have been under investigation anyway since IA investigates all officer-involved shootings, but apparently, Holloway wasn’t the one initially looking into the case.  Inspector Newman was.  Holloway says so himself on the first tape.”_

“Then how did Holloway get the case?”

_“Not sure, but after Mrs. Johnson handed him her sob story, he took a huge interest in helping her out.  You want to hear what I mean?”_

“Yes.  Play me the tape.”

_“Oh, Lieutenant, it’s not just one tape...it’s several.  There’s a whole dangerous plot outlined here.”_

Mike gulped.  “Let me hear this.”

* * *

_Margaret:_ Sergeant, thank you for seeing me.

_Holloway:_ Mrs. Johnson, I have to admit, I’m not sure what you wanted to see me about.  All you mentioned was a murder and that an officer did it.  I agreed to see you mostly because you sounded so worried.”

_Margaret:_ Oh, please, call me Margaret.  I’m under the impression that Internal Affairs investigates all homicides by cop.  Is that right?

_Holloway:_ Yes, in a way.  We investigate, along with Homicide, the Medical Examiner’s office, and the District Attorney.  What is this concerning?

_Margaret:_ The murder of Paul Carpenter.

_Holloway:_ Oh, yeah.  Shot by Inspector Steven Keller.  That’s not my case though.  You’ll have to speak with Inspector Newman if you have concerns about that.

_Margaret:_ No, I will not speak with this Inspector Newman.  You are the man who will right this wrong.

_Holloway:_ Ma’am, we all work for the same goal.  Inspector Newman will be just fine.

_Margaret:_ No, because he doesn’t understand the gravity of this situation.  I know you do.  You’ve been there.

*pause, sounds of rustling papers*

* * *

“Is that it?” Mike interrupted.

_“Oh no.  I think he’s just thinking,”_ Mark explained. _“There’s plenty more.”_

* * *

_Holloway:_ “Where exactly have I been?”

_Margaret:_ “You were in the newspaper some months back, were you not?”

_Holloway:_ The newspaper?  What newspaper?  

_Margaret:_ Not _The Chronicle_...some smaller publication.  I think Paul called it an underground rag.

_Holloway:_ Oh, yeah.   _The Pier Review_.  They were doing a series on dirty cops and what was being done about it.  

_Margaret:_ Paul showed me the article.  You mentioned losing a fellow officer and friend to a dirty cop, one who was more concerned with romance than his job.  Was all that true?

_Holloway:_ Of course it’s true.  But how does that have anything to do with Keller or the victim?

_Margaret:_ Because Steven Keller is a dirty, dirty cop.  The dirtiest of them all.  He killed Paul out of spite, out of revenge!  He didn’t want the romantic competition!

* * *

“What is she talking about?  Is it that story you told us Holloway told you about why he’s after Steve?”

_“Don’t worry about that now, Mike.  I’ll explain it all later.”_

* * *

_Holloway:_ Why don’t you start at the beginning.

_Margaret:_ Paul Carpenter was like a son to me.  Good kid.  Very honest, intelligent...so much more of a man than his worthless father.  I would have been extremely happy to have him as my son-in-law.  But that won’t happen now!  Steven Keller made sure my daughter would never know true happiness!  He killed Paul out of jealousy.

* * *

There was another much longer pause.  “What’s going on?” Mike asked.

_“I think he got up to get the case file or something.  It sounds like he’s walking around.  He mentions reading through Steve and Amy’s incident statements.  Let me fast forward through that part.”_

* * *

_Holloway:_ Hmm.  Well, I’d have to take time to read this more in depth, but it does look like Keller did some odd things.  Yet, nothing here seems to point to him shooting the victim for any reason but self defense.  The victim did have possession of his gun.

_Margaret:_ Paul.  His name is Paul.  Stop referring to him as “victim.”  He was a human being, not some statistic.

_Holloway:_  Oookkaayy.  Let me ask this.  What makes you think Steve killed _Paul_ on purpose?

_Margaret:_ You wanted me to go back to the beginning.  Alright.  My daughter is an idiot.  Yes, I love her because she is mine, but she doesn’t have the sense she was born with.  She’s never made a decent decision in her life, and far be it for her to listen to me!  The whole reason she’s even up here is because she didn’t listen to me when I told her how dangerous it was up here, what with all the hippies and whatnot.

That’s why I suggested to Paul that he look into going to school up here - to keep an eye on her.  I didn’t have to push too hard.  Paul was always in love with Amy.  If only she had been smart enough to see it.  But no...no, she comes up here and falls for all the wrong people and gets into all the wrong situations.  Half her friends died on her, yet she still wouldn’t let Paul protect her!  What does she do instead?  Falls in love with the cop who got her shot!

_Holloway:_ We’re talking about Steve Keller here?

_Margaret:_ Uh huh.  See, Paul liked to keep an eye on Amy.  I loved him for this; I mean, a mother worries about her daughter when she’s hours away.  Having him keep a watch over her made me feel better.  Anyway, he was at the funeral where she met... _him_.  For some reason, Paul didn’t tell her he was there, but he had his eye on her.  He was always looking out for her safety.  And you know what he saw?  He saw your inspector put my daughter right in harm’s way!  He got my child shot and almost killed!  But can you ask the real witness what he saw Mr. Keller do?  Nope, because he’s dead!  Killed to keep quiet.

_Holloway:_ You think Steve shot Paul to keep him from talking about the incident at the cemetery?

_Margaret:_ Among other things.  Like I said, my daughter is kind of stupid.  She sees a flashy sales pitch and falls for it.  Mr. Keller knows what he did was wrong, and he was worried Amy would turn him in.  So he “falls” for her...hands her all this stuff about him worrying about her and wanting to protect her.  That man has managed to even convince her that her own father was murdered!  It was an accident, pure and simple, but she wants to drag me through all that hell again by insisting that my husband was murdered.  He also convinced her that Paul was some kind of serial killer!  You know why, don’t you?

_Holloway:_ How ‘bout you tell me?

_Margaret:_ Because then she would turn on Paul!  If Amy turns on Paul, then Steven can brainwash her forever and ever!  That was his goal all along!  Make her his puppet, and she’d say anything he wanted her to!  She’d protect every secret he held!

_Holloway:_ So you’re saying that Steve is using Amy to what, turn cases his way or something?

_Margaret:_ He wanted Paul out of the picture so he could have Amy all to himself.  She’s easily brainwashed, so she thinks he’s in love with her and she with him, but she’s just his pawn.  Now they’ll do each other’s bidding.  He convinced her that Paul was a serial killer because he wanted him dead and out of the way.  She gets mad enough that she tells Steven to kill Paul.  He does and they both claim self defense.  They _were_ the only two witnesses to that shooting.

Now what’s to stop Steven Keller from pulling this stunt again?  Maybe with another man who flirts with my daughter.  Maybe another witness to his brutality.  He’s a danger to your department, Sergeant...just like that man who got your friend killed.

_Holloway:_ Well, it is against the rules for an officer to date someone involved with a case.  There’s a huge conflict of interest.

_Margaret:_ Look, Steven Keller wanted that one man arrested so badly that he got my daughter shot in the process.  Then he ends up creating this whole elaborate scheme to maintain his innocence.  If it required telling my daughter confidential case information in the process...so be it.  Whatever he had to do to get his target.

_Holloway:_ I’ll...uh...I’ll look into this.  I have a pretty good record with cleaning up the department, and if Steve is as guilty as you say he is, it will be my pleasure to serve him his walking papers.  The guy’s kind of an arrogant bastard anyway, to be honest.

_Margaret:_ I knew you’d see things my way.  

* * *

Mark stopped the tape and ejected it from the player.   _“Nothing important on the rest of that tape.  The next few tapes involved Holloway updating Margaret on what he’d found out.  It’s basically him telling her a bunch of lies, her telling him a bunch of lies, and them both believing it all.  She just keeps going on and on about how Steve was using Amy, and that he got her kidnapped and beaten.  It really made no sense to me, and I listened to it five times.  Holloway ate it up though.  I think he somehow managed to relate the case to his mess in Chicago...which was also a gigantic lie.”_

“What did you say happened?”

_“He told me that some guy he worked with tried to take down bank robbers by himself and got a woman shot in the process.  He helped her through it and the two got into a relationship.  He told her a bunch of inside information on the case, and she, unbeknownst to this cop, told the robbers.  Eventually, this Romeo gets Holloway’s buddy shot._

_But the truth of the matter is, it wasn’t some random cop...it was Holloway.  Holloway was the one who got into the relationship, told the woman case secrets, and got some other guy shot.  Holloway, or Mitchell Dickenson as it says on his birth certificate, is the dirty cop.”_

Mike paused.  “Holloway isn’t Holloway?” he finally spit out in complete disbelief.

_“The Chicago PD told me so themselves.  He got thrown off the force, after which time he tried to murder the men who threw him off.  Disappeared from Chicago in ‘64.  Resurfaced here a few months later under the name Delbert Holloway.  Applies here under the fake name and with a stack of fake recommendations from some place in Minnesota.”_

“And now he’s what, after guys who were dirty like him?”

_“Mike, he’s gotten a lot of good men kicked off the force here.  I found a list of names, went through their files, and found that what they did may have been against the rules or something, but not dismissal material.  Holloway fabricated facts to make it look like these guys were just as dirty as him.  It really pissed him off when it didn’t work with Steve.  That’s where it gets ugly, Mike.  Real ugly.”_

Mike could hear him inserting another tape into the player.  “Play it,” was all he said.

_“This tape was from before Steve was suspended.”_

* * *

_Holloway:_ The goods were delivered, Margaret.  My guy told me he delivered the photos to Steve this morning.  He’ll be believing she’s dead in no time.  And as for your lawyer friend, he doesn’t know a damn thing.  Nothing he told Sergeant Drake led to them connecting his captors to us.

_Margaret:_ Good.  So you think Amy’s death will cause Steve to go off the deep end?

_Holloway:_ I do, and we certainly can’t have a mentally disturbed cop on the force, can we?  My inside man tells me he’s already losing it, so this will just crack him more.

_Margaret:_ *laughs*  I wouldn’t mind if he went off and killed himself.  Save us the trouble.  Hey, that guy who made the fake newspaper...tell him job well done.  She believed every word of it.  She’ll start being agreeable soon enough, even if I have to drug the little bitch.  Then it will be my turn to deprogram her.

_Holloway:_ How’d she take the news of Wonder Boy’s demise?

_Margaret:_ At first she was sad, but then she got wicked mad.  I didn’t think she was capable of such anger.  See why I need a deprogrammer?

* * *

“Holloway was in on that fake picture and newspaper?” Mike said, disgusted and angry.

_“Sounds like it.  That scary-looking guy who handed me the photo must have been one of his guys, along with whoever was terrorizing Bryan Palermo.  So if we were wondering where Margaret got the resources to pull some of this stuff off?”_

“We’re not wondering anymore.  You have anything else?”

_“Yeah.  This was after Steve was suspended.”_

* * *

_Holloway_ : My boss let him off with a damn slap on the wrist, Margaret.

_Margaret_ : What?!  You promised me that he’d be punished for this!

_Holloway_ : Well, he was still suspended…

Margaret: That’s not good enough!  He ruined my daughter!  He took her away and turned her against me!  He has such a hold on her that the only way I’ll ever get her back is to kill him!  Do you understand me!  I’ll bet he’s found out that Amy’s here in Nebraska and it will only be a matter of time before he steals her away again!  I know those fucking Koestlers told him where she was.  They’re such lying pieces of shit - always have been.  Fucking goody-goodies.  

_Holloway_ : Look, let me work on one other thing I’ve been thinking of.  I’ll fly out there and explain it to you in person.  It’s a foolproof plan; even a girl like Amy won’t want to keep Steve if she thinks he’s cheating on her.

_Margaret_ : And if that doesn’t work?

_Holloway_ : Well then, we’ll have to eliminate them.  The world has no place for someone who’s above the law.

* * *

Mark slowly pressed stop.   _“And Mike...his plan didn’t work.  I mean, I was his plan, and I never got back with him.  You know what this means, don’t you?”_  His voice was understandably fearful.

“Now, don’t you worry.  This place is crawling with cops.  There’s one outside his door, one in the lobby...the whole county is on alert.”

_“What about Amy?  Do you guys know where she even is?”_

“She’s fine too.  She’s here as well.”

_“Oh, good!  So I didn’t ruin everything...just some of it.  Look, Mike, I really am…”_

“Let’s just hold off on all that until this is over.  There’s nothing you found that tells where whatshisname is here?”

_“Not a thing.  I looked all over his desk and office.  No plane ticket stubs, receipts, addresses...nothing.  Sorry.”_

“No, you did good.  Honestly.  If you do find out anything, let me know right away.  And keep all that evidence close; we’ll need it to get this dirty cop off the force...again.”

_“I’ll be more than glad to see that happen.”_

“Talk to you later, Mark.  Oh, and like I said, good job.”

Mike hung up the phone and sighed.  He looked up and saw Jeannie staring at him.  

“What is going on, Mike?” she asked apprehensively.

“Don’t you worry about it, Sweetheart.  It’s nothing we won’t handle.”

“I know you’ll handle it, but I want to know what it is that you’ll handle.”

He smiled at her caring and persistence.  “That was Inspector Stilwell.  He just found out some things about Amy’s mother that are worrisome.  That’s all.”

“That’s all?  That’s all?!  You’re being too casual about this, Mike!”

He stood up and grabbed the room keys.  “It won’t do any good to fly off the handle now, will it?”

Jeannie pouted.  “I guess not...but are you going to tell Steve and Amy?  Should they be worried?”

Pondering the possibilities, he quickly chose to keep this to himself for the time being.  “I don't think they need to know right now.  Why don't you get up and call them?  I may be gone for a bit.  You don't need to sit around here waiting alone.”

* * *

 

Mike and Chief Garrett sat in a conference room at the Douglas County Sheriff’s Station, each nursing a cup of lukewarm coffee and a pastry that tasted like it had been around since Christmas.  Deputies and OPD officers kept popping in and out, either informing the two of news they didn’t have, asking them for clarification on something, or having them help weed out all the calls to the tip line that were nonsense at best.

The day before, after much discussion of case facts between Omaha, Douglas County, Los Angeles County, and San Francisco, the Douglas County Sheriff’s Department issued alerts for both Margaret and Holloway.  Their names and faces made the ten o’clock news of every station in the eastern Nebraska and western Iowa areas.  Since that time, a specially set up tip line had been receiving calls almost nonstop from as far east as eastern Pottawattamie County, Iowa, south and west as Lincoln, and north as Onawa, Iowa.  

Mike rolled his eyes and Garrett let out a grunt, both shoving their respective papers to the side before grabbing another.

“Do people in this world sit around and watch for anyone who looks like they might be wanted just so they can call and be helpful?” Garrett muttered.

“I’m not sure helpful is the word here,” Mike grumbled back.  “I’m beginning to wonder if media coverage was even a good idea.”

At that thought, a deputy popped his head in, followed by an OPD officer.  “Gentlemen, I think we have a credible one here.  Caller is a clerk at a convenience store on North 16th.  He says he just sold some stuff to a guy who looked like your male suspect,” the deputy informed the men.

Mike bolted out of his chair.  “Then what are we waiting for?”

* * *

 

Mike and Garrett, along with two OPD officers and a sheriff’s deputy, pulled into a gas station lot on the corner of N 16th and Burt.  Four of the men got out of the cars and headed into the building where they showed the caller a photograph of Sergeant Holloway.

“Yeah, that’s the guy,” the scruffy, unkempt 20-something said.  “Wasn’t here more than ten minutes ago.  I was in the back, but saw him wandering around the aisles, so I called you guys.  Dude looks a little different than he did on the news though; now he has a beard.  Not much of one, but scraggly, you know?  Like he’s never done nothin to it.”

“What was he wearing?” Mike asked.

“A suit...gray.  With a tie.  Seemed out of place to be wearing a suit and tie to pick up gasoline and matches.  Didn’t even have a car.  He just carried the gas can off down the street.”

“Which way did he walk?” the OPD officer asked.

“South, toward the freeway.”

Everyone started heading out the door except Mike.  “He bought gasoline and matches you say?  That’s it?”

The men stopped and listened for an answer.  “No, he also bought a can of R-22.  You know, like he needed to recharge his A/C or somethin.”

Mike didn’t move a muscle.  “R-22?” he asked for clarification.

The man nodded, and Mike slowly turned and headed for the door.  Once outside, the men converged around the OPD cruiser.

“Gasoline and matches are definitely worrisome, but R-22?  What the hell is he gonna use that for?” the deputy inquired.

“R-22 is made from chloroform.  I imagine lacking any actual chloroform, he’s using it in a pinch to knock someone out,” Mike said, the apprehension in his voice palpable.

The men looked amongst one another, sharing both the worry and sudden urgency of the situation through their eyes.

“Guys, we may have something.  A cashier at a hardware store over on 14th swears the guy is in there right now,” the OPD officer in the car told everyone.  “We better get over there.”  Grabbing the mic, he radioed in his destination as the rest of the men piled in their cars and sped off to the next block.

The two cars screeched to a halt outside the front entrance.  A man in a carpenter’s apron rushed through the door.  “You missed him by only a minute.  We tried to hold him, but I think he grew suspicious.”

“Is this the guy?” Mike asked, showing the man the same photograph they showed the gas station attendant.  

“Yep, but with a beard.”

“Was he wearing a gray suit?  Was he carrying anything with him?”

The man shook his head.  “No, nothing.  And yes, he did have on a gray suit.  I saw him walk off that way,” he said, pointing north toward Cuming Street.

“Did you see him get in a car?” one of the OPD officers asked.

“No.  He seemed to be on foot.”

“If he didn’t have the gas can, he almost has to have a car somewhere,” the other officer muttered.  “I’m putting out an APB and calling for additional units.”

“I’m going to drive around, see if I can spot him,” the sheriff’s deputy announced, getting back into his car and driving off to the north.

“You realize how close the hotel is, don’t you Mike?” Garrett asked fearfully.  

Mike let out a breath in response before turning back to the man from the store.  “What else can you tell us?  Anything might be helpful.”

“I don’t know...he seemed nice enough.  Came in and bought a shovel, some rope, duct tape, and flower seeds.  Granted, I thought those were odd things to be buying in a business suit, but I’ve seen crazier.  I asked him if he was planting a garden.  His answer was, ‘Something like that.’  Then he asked what plants grow good in the shade.  I guess he planned on putting a garden in a somewhat wooded area that didn’t get too much sunlight.  So I sold him some bluebells and elderberry.  I tried to sell him some plant food, but he said they’d get enough nutrients as he was planting over some decaying compost.  Like I said, seemed nice enough, but once I realized I’d seen his face on the news last night, my wife and I tried to stall him.  Sorry it didn’t work.”

“No, you did good.” Mike smiled at the man.  “If you think of anything else, be sure and let these two officers know right away.”

“Will do.”

Mike turned and informed the OPD officers of what had happened.  They decided to start walking the neighborhood to see if they could spot Holloway or a car.  Mike and Garrett started walking off toward the hotel as another OPD unit pulled up in front of the hardware store.  

“R-22, rope, duct tape, matches, gasoline, and a shovel.  The crazy man’s kit for kidnapping and murder,” Garrett muttered as they walked at a quick pace.

“I don’t like this,” Mike added.  “I don’t like this one bit.”    


	49. Chapter 49

**_Monday, May 27, 1974_ **

Amy awoke to the sound of Steve softly talking with someone on the phone.  After letting her eyes adjust to the light, she noticed that he had already showered and gotten dressed.  She looked to her left and saw Jasmine still cuddled up next to her, fast asleep, so she turned back and watched her boyfriend pace the floor.

“Mmm hmm...yeah, that sounds good.  I’m glad he’s still on our side.  So it looks like it won’t be a problem? … I mean, between your guy and these pictures and stories I have, we shouldn’t have a problem proving our claims. … Oh yeah, she’ll tell the truth.  She knows the truth will get her what she wants. … Yeah, we can be back there before Friday. … Oh, don’t worry, they’re on our side. … Yeah, okay, sounds good.  I’ll call you when we get back to California.  Not sure yet when. … Talk to you later.”

Steve walked back to the phone and laid down the handset on the cradle.  He looked over and saw Amy looking at him.

“Sorry I woke you up,” he whispered as he leaned over and gave her a good morning kiss.

“That’s alright.  I think I kind of just woke up anyway.  When did you get up?”

He sat back down on the side of the bed he had occupied that night and took ahold of her hand.  “About an hour ago.  Couldn’t sleep, so I just got up.  You feel okay?”

She smiled.  “I feel great.  I’m with my two favorite people and not in a hospital.  Who were you talking to?”

“My lawyer.  Judge Harding is sending someone down to LA to talk to her on Friday, so we’ll have to get her back to school by then.”

“Harding...the same judge as before?”

Steve nodded.  “Apparently he’s very unhappy at what my lawyer’s private investigator found out about the Lynches.  He’s having someone talk to Jasmine to get her side, but it looks pretty good for you getting custody.”

She squeezed his hand.  “We, Babe, we.  I mean, if you want to be a part of her life.  I want you to, and I’m sure she does too...but you know, if you don’t want to get into all that…”

“Hey now, stop that.  We can talk about all the technicalities later, but trust me when I say that yes, I want to be a part of your lives for as long as you want me.”

She smiled.  “You’re the best, you know that?”

“I’ve heard that rumor before,” he joked.  

“Did I already thank you for all you’re doing for me with this?  It’s not really your problem, and I know enough lawyers to sue everyone involved for every dime they have…”

“That sounds slightly evil.”

“Hey, shark lawyers are great when they’re on your side, and my father knew some of the biggest sharks in southern California.  I think he may have been one of them.  Anyway, you didn’t have to get involved in all this.”

“You know what, Amy?” he asked, leaning over and putting his face close to hers.  “For you, I’d do anything.”  He kissed her again.

“Anything, huh?  Hmm...I may have to take advantage of this,” she said playfully.

“How about we start with something to eat?  Are you hungry?” he asked, sitting up.

“Yeah, I suppose I am.  It’s taking a while to get my stomach back in normal shape, but I should eat something.”

“McDonald’s,” a small voice said into her side.

“She is a champ at pretending to be asleep, isn’t she?”  He reached across Amy and rubbed Jasmine’s back.  “McDonald’s huh?”

She nodded without ever opening her eyes.

“Eww no.  I couldn’t handle that.  Too greasy.  I’m thinking a donut.  That’s quick and easy.  You can eat a donut, can’t you?” she asked the half-asleep child next to her.

“Uh huh.  I like donuts.”

“I think there’s a Dunkin Donuts closeby,” Steve mentioned.

Amy looked at Steve.  “Good.  Powdered sugar for her.  And something creme-filled for me.”  Putting her hand out for him to take, she used his help to sit up.  “And coffee.  Cream and sugar.  Or Coffee-Mate.”

“I thought you drank it black?”  Steve stood up and then helped her do the same.

She shrugged.  “I need the sugar  _ and _ caffeine today.  I just have this weird feeling that it’s going to be a long day.  A long week.”    

He just grunted and grabbed his wallet off the dresser.

Amy turned toward the window and looked out the crack between the curtains.  There was nothing to see but downtown skyline, but it sent a shiver down her spine. “Wait, what the hell am I doing?  You can’t go out there!” she gasped, looking at Steve with fear in her eyes.

“Why not?”

“Because my mother is running around loose!  You leave this room and you’re a target!”

“I’m not going alone.  I already talked to the officer in the hall.  He said he’d take me out to get food if I wanted.”

“There’s a cop in the hall?”

Steve nodded.  “And one in the lobby, and one somewhere else.  Trust me, this place is secure.  Mike has an amazing pull with people.  Look, your mother may be crazy, but she’s not going to try to kill me with a cop around.”

Amy hesitated before waffling over an agreement.  “Just be careful.  I’d rather starve than lose you.”

He pulled her into an embrace.  “I will be fine, I promise,” he whispered into her ear.  Kissing her goodbye, he headed out the door.  Amy could hear him talking to someone before both voices disappeared down the hall.  

Sighing, she strolled into the bathroom and turned on the light.  Turning toward the mirror, she was frightened by seeing something other than her own reflection.  After she gathered her wits, she saw a message written in red lipstick.  She smiled and laughed in relief.  It simply said YOU’RE MINE with a smiley face.

Amy rolled her eyes, remembering what Steve had told her last night about the blood-written message on his mirror.  “You’re crazy, Keller,” she said, chuckling.  

She looked down and turned on the water, splashing some of it on her face.  Grabbing a towel off a rack next to the sink, she dried her face and stared at the message.  “Where’d he get the lipstick?” she wondered aloud.

* * *

 

As they got to the hotel’s main parking lot, Mike and Garrett saw an OPD cruiser drive by.  The officer in the passenger’s seat shouted, “Nothing yet!” out the window before disappearing. 

Garrett started to head for the main entrance of the hotel, but Mike put his hand on the chief’s arm to stop him.

“I want to check all around the hotel first.  If Holloway was headed this way, I doubt he’d just waltz right in the front door.”

“How would he figure out which room was Steve’s?” Garrett asked.

“I don’t know, but at this point, I’m not putting anything past him.  If he can fool an entire police department for ten years, he can fool a receptionist into giving away Steve’s room number.”

The two jaunted to the back of the hotel.  There were public entrances in the front and on both sides of the building, but the back only had an employee-only door.  All law enforcement officials were parking in the back and using that door in order to avoid alarming any guests due to the increased police presence.  

Upon arrival, Mike and Garrett saw one police cruiser and what appeared to be a pair of legs on the ground between it and the car parked on its passenger’s side.  Both men looked at each other before sprinting toward the cars.  There they found the sheriff’s deputy who had been on hall duty outside Steve and Amy’s room.  He was lying on the ground face down and passed out cold.  Garrett immediately checked for a pulse, and upon finding one, began gently shaking the man.

The deputy finally came around, sat up, and looked at the two men who were hovering over him.  “What happened?” he groaned.

“Take it easy,” Mike told him, afraid that his moving too much would do further damage.  “We were about to ask you the same thing.”

The man put his hand on the back of his head.  Garrett noticed a rather large lump had developed.  “I’d venture to say you were jumped from behind.  You remember anything?”

He shook his head and winced.  “I was taking Inspector Keller out to grab some breakfast.  I guess somebody jumped me.”

“Steve was with you?” Mike blurted.

Garrett got on the car radio and called for an ambulance.  Mike started looking all around, including in between and under cars while calling Steve’s name.  The inspector was nowhere to be found.

“Dammit!” Mike yelled before going back to the deputy.  “Do you remember anything?  Anything at all?  A car, a person, anything?!”   

The man closed his eyes.  “We came out the door, and I did a quick visual sweep of the area but didn’t see anything suspicious.”

He looked to his right.  “There was a car parked there,” he said, pointing at the empty parking space next to the cruiser’s driver’s side.  “I hadn’t checked it yet.”

“Checked it?” Garrett asked.

“Yeah, for anyone hiding inside or around it.  I checked this car.”  He pointed his thumb at the rusty Chevy Vega next to him.  “I wouldn’t let Steve in my car until I made sure no one was hiding in this Vega.  No one was...at least I didn’t think anyone was.”

“Remember anything after that?” Mike pushed.

The deputy sat silent for a moment.  “Darkness.  That’s all.  God, what have I done?” He hung his head and buried his face in his hands.

“Son, we’ve all been blindsided by someone.  Never our finest moment, but the lesson learned is invaluable,” Garrett said reassuringly.  “And face it, it just gives us more fuel to nail these creeps.”

“And the two you’re dealing with...I think they’re a lot more clever than any of us gave them credit for,” Mike added, sighing.  “Plus, I bet this escape plan was all Steve’s idea, wasn’t it?”

“Well…” the deputy hesitated.  

“You can be honest, Son,” Mike said.

“I still agreed that he’d be safe with me.”

“What kind of car was that parked there?” Garrett asked.  “Are you sure it was theirs?”

The man shook his head.  “I’m not sure whose it was.  But it was a newer model...a...a…”  He closed his eyes and winced.

“The ambulance is on its way.  Just do your best to see the car,” Mike said.

He sat on the ground for a moment, quiet as a mouse, but Mike could tell by the pained expression on his face that he really was trying to think hard about the car.  Meanwhile, Garrett started toward the building, looking up and around the exterior.

“What are you doing?” Mike inquired, turning around and looking curiously at the chief.

“Seeing if there’s a security camera.  We’re parked close to the door where the camera would likely be aimed.  Maybe it caught who drove off in the missing car.”  Then he pointed up by a light fixture not too far from the employee entrance.  “There it is.”

“Go in and see if you can look at the footage from…”  Mike turned back to the fallen deputy.  “How long ago would you say you came out here?”

The deputy looked at his watch.  “No more than fifteen minutes I don’t think.  Maybe even less than that.  I’m not sure what time it was to be honest.”

Mike turned back to Garrett.  “Check the last half hour.  Or go as far back as that car.”

“What kind of car am I looking for?”

They both looked at the deputy.  “It was silver.  Like I said, it looked brand new.  Nova!  It was a new Nova.  I didn’t get a look at the plates though.”

The wail of an ambulance could be heard in the distance, and it grew stronger by the second.  Garrett disappeared into the hotel.  Mike stayed with the deputy until the medics loaded him into the ambulance.  Then a disturbing thought came to him.  If this man was the one outside Steve’s room...then was anyone watching Amy?

* * *

 

Amy stood at the mirror trying her best to wipe off the lipstick with toilet paper.  It was smearing more than it was removing itself.  “Ugh.  If this wasn’t so sweet, I’d kill him for it,” she muttered as she threw another red-stained lump of bathroom tissue in the wastebasket.  “It looks like I murdered someone,” she muttered, looking down at the basket.

“What did you do?” Jasmine asked, coming into the bathroom and wrapping herself around her mother’s good leg.

She looked down at the little girl.  “Hey, Babe.  Oh, nothing.  Daddy was just being silly this morning and made a mess that I have to clean up.”

“Oh.  When do we get to go home?” she asked, looking up at Amy.

“Hopefully soon,” Amy answered, throwing another wad of lipstick-stained paper in the trash.  “Come out here.  We need to talk about something.”

Jasmine followed Amy out to the main room and the two sat on the end of Jasmine’s bed.  “Did I do something wrong?” Jasmine asked.

Amy chuckled.  “No.  Why would you think that?  No, it’s just that...well, do you remember when you had to go to court, and you talked to the judge about living with me?”

Jasmine nodded and scowled.  “He made me live with them.”

“Uh huh.  Well, Steve and I need to take you back to Los Angeles and that school, because someone from the judge’s office is going there to talk to you about everything that happened in Arizona.”

“They’re going to make me go back?!” Jasmine said in absolute fear.

Amy put her hands on the girl’s face.  “Nonono, Baby, no.  Not if you tell them the truth.  Tell them what you told Daddy over the phone.  He told me some of the stuff you told him.  If you tell this person what happened, I’m sure the judge will let you live with me.”

Jasmine started blinking away tears.  “Are you sure?  I don’t wanna go back there!”

“And I will do everything I can to make sure you don’t.  I promise.  Look, I’m not in the hospital anymore, which was the biggest reason you had to go to Arizona, so please don’t worry, okay?  Please?”

Jasmine nodded and wiped away some tears.  She then leaned her head Amy’s chest and hugged her.  “I wanna live with you and Daddy in your apartment.  Or in Daddy’s apartment. Wherever.”

As Amy rubbed Jasmine’s back, she got to thinking about living arrangements.  Where would she live once this was all over and everyone was back in San Francisco?  After what happened, she doubted that Karen would ever step foot in their apartment again, and she didn’t exactly like the thought of living in a place where someone almost died.  She also didn’t like the thought of living alone but thought imposing on a man she’d only been dating a short while was tacky. Plus, he only had one bedroom and now they’d need two.  Feeling like she suddenly was homeless with no options, she took a deep breath to keep from crying.

“Come on, we need to get dressed before Daddy gets back with our donuts,” she said, trying to change the subject.

* * *

Mike took off like a flash into the hotel and up the stairs.  He did not have time to waste waiting for the elevator.  Once on the second floor, he ran to the opposite end of the floor where he saw a man in uniform standing outside of Amy’s room.  

“Has anyone been in or out of this room since you got up here?” he asked the OPD officer.

The young man shook his head.  “No, Sir.  I knocked on the door and let Miss Johnson know I was out here, but that’s all.”

“She is in there?”

“Yes, Sir.  Her and her daughter.”

“Oh thank God,” Mike muttered as he knocked on the door.  “Amy, it’s Mike,” he shouted.

“Uh, just a second!” she shouted back, trying her best to get to the door quickly.  His voice sounded impatient, which worried her.  Finally getting to the door, she unlocked it and removed the chain from the door.  

Mike burst his way in.  “Are you girls alright?”

Amy squinted.  “Of course, Mike.  Why?”  She slowly closed the door.

Mike went over to the window and looked out.

“Mike...what’s going on?” she apprehensively asked his back.  

He turned around and smiled a very small, tense smile.  “Honey, why don’t you sit down?”

Amy didn’t move.  “What did she do, Mike?” she asked angrily.

Mike shook his head like he didn’t understand.

“My mother.  What did she do to Steve, Mike?  That’s why you’re here, acting all worried, telling me to sit down…”

Mike tried to say something, but Amy burst out again.  “What did she do to Steve?!”

Jasmine opened the bathroom door and popped out, looking back and forth from her mother to Mike.  “Did she take Daddy now?”

“What, Baby?  What are you talking about?”  Amy tried acting like Jasmine hadn’t just overheard everything and that nothing was wrong.

“Daddy told me that your mom took you away.  That’s why we’re here.  Did she take him now too?” she answered very seriously.

Amy let her guard down slightly.  “He told you that, huh?”

Jasmine nodded, then both her and Amy looked to Mike for an answer.

“We’re not sure...but it looks that way.  We just chased Holloway around town, and it appeared he was headed this way.  And…”

“And...?  And what, Mike?”

“And...we found the deputy who was outside your door unconscious in the parking lot.” 

Amy stood still, leaning on her crutches for support.  “I knew she couldn't do this alone.  I knew it.”

Mike walked over to her and put his arms around her.  “Now don't assume the worst yet.  We don't know what happened or where Steve even is.”

“She’ll kill him,” she whispered into Mike’s chest.  “She hates him so much.”

He rubbed her back.  After hearing the tapes, he believed that above all else.  Letting go of Amy, he went to the phone and called downstairs.

“Were you able to see anything?” he asked Garrett as he watched Amy and Jasmine stand in the corner, huddled up and trembling.

_ “Just looking at the footage now.  Seems the Nova arrived early this morning, about eight.  For the longest time, the driver never got out...that is until about an hour later when a man carrying a gas can arrived.” _

“Holloway?”

_ “He never faced the camera, but the man is wearing a suit.  He arrives and the driver gets out.  It’s definitely Margaret.  She opens the trunk, in goes the gas can and I'm guessing that can of R-22, and he takes off again.” _

“Off to the hardware store,” Mike muttered.

_ “Yep.  He comes back carrying the shovel and all that, puts everything but that in the trunk, then he and Margaret take to hiding.  He takes the shovel and heads off camera toward the building.  She crouches down almost under the Nova.” _

“And they wait.”

_ “Uh huh.  Not for long though.  Five minutes.” _

“How could they possibly have known that Steve was leaving?” Mike asked, exasperated.

Amy started looking around the room.  Then she bent over and whispered something into Jasmine’s ear. The little girl then started looking around the room, checking the windows, the lamps, under tables and furniture.  

Mike watched her curiously as Garrett continued.   _ “The deputy and Inspector Keller come out, things go just like we heard, then Holloway comes out of hiding and whacks the deputy over the head with the shovel.  Looks to me like Steve tried to warn him.  Then Margaret pops out from the front of the squad car and it appears she’s holding a gun or something to Steve’s back.  Holloway gets into the trunk, gets out the refrigerant, and somehow manages to gas Steve with it.  He goes limp, Holloway shoves his body into the backseat of the Nova, then he and Margaret take off.” _

“Any footage that could tell us what direction they went?”

_ “Sorry, nothing.  But I got a partial license.  I’m going to call it in and head back to the station.  You coming?” _

“Yeah, I’ll be down in a minute.”  Mike hung up the phone and immediately asked Jasmine what she was going.

“Looking for microphones,” she told him earnestly.  “Mommy, I don’t see anything like you said.”

Mike looked at her shamingly.

“Well, how  _ did _ she know Steve was leaving?  Did she bug the place?  Or would she have sat out there all day and night until we all left?”

“I don’t know, but now is not the time for how, just where.  We just need to find them before this gets worse than it has to be.”  Mike started walking toward Amy and the door.  “I’m heading to the station.  I’ll let you know when we…”

“I’m going with you,” Amy interrupted.

“No, you stay here…”

“And what?  Worry myself sick?  No!  I’m just as involved in this as everyone else!  I am going down to the station with you.  I know that woman better than anyone, no?”

Mike reluctantly nodded.

“Then you might need me.  Give us five minutes to get ready.”

The two stared at each other until Mike nodded, told her he was going to get Jeannie, and walked out the door.

Amy took a breath and looked at Jasmine.  “Baby, finish getting dressed.  We’re going with Mike to the police station, okay?”

Jasmine didn’t move.

“Believe me, this will all be okay, and Daddy will be back with us soon.  I swear.  By the end of the day, this will be all over.”

She slowly nodded and headed back into the bathroom.  Amy made her way to the closet where Steve had hung up all their clothes the night before.  As she stared at her limited wardrobe, she got to thinking about something - something that was now on the top shelf of the closet.  She looked up and spotted it, wondering how she was going to sneak it out of the room and keep it hidden from Mike.  He would not like what she was planning, but she didn’t care.  

She found the loosest shirt she had and threw it on, following it with a pair of jeans.  Then she grabbed the gun and enough bullets to fill the chamber.  “This will end once and for all, Mother.  Count on it,” she muttered under her breath as she loaded the gun.


	50. Chapter 50

**_Monday, May 27, 1974_ **

The conference room at the sheriff’s station was suddenly overrun by Californians.  Jeannie paced the floor in front of the windows that separated the room from the rest of the floor.  Karen sat at the table and colored with Jasmine.  Tim kept popping in and out of the room, desperate to get involved.  Ben sat in the corner reading War and Peace, a title Amy found inappropriately ironic.  And Amy...Amy sat still as a fence, sipping a cup of coffee, and thinking.  Her mind was working overtime on the biggest question of the hour: where?  

Where would Margaret take Steve to kill him?  She thought back to all the mystery novels she’d read and the crime dramas she’d seen.  It seemed like the killer, if the murder was personal, would take them to some place symbolic, some place that meant something to either them or the victim.  No place in Nebraska would mean anything to Steve, so that thought was out.  She couldn’t think of any place that would mean anything to her either; she’d never been to Nebraska and Margaret knew it.  So that meant if her mother was calling the shots, and Amy had no doubts she was, then it would have to be a place that meant something to Margaret.

Amy sighed and set her cup on the table.  “Karen, did Aunt Kaye ever mention anything about life in Bennington?  Anything at all?”

Karen looked up from her coloring and at her cousin.  “Not a thing.  Swear.  I’m not sure Dad even knows she’s from there.  The stuff we found was very well hidden.  Why?”

“Margaret would take him somewhere symbolic to her.  She went to too much trouble to just…”  Amy looked at Jasmine and paused.  “...just you know...any old place.  She could have hidden me anywhere I suppose, yet she chose a barn she’d been in several times.  You know what I mean?”

“Symbolism,” Ben added from the corner, never looking up from his reading.

“Exactly.  I just thought maybe you knew of a place.”

Karen just shrugged.  “That sounds like a stretch.”

Jeannie shook her head.  “No, it makes perfect sense to me.  Mike has had cases where the killer took their victim to some place that held some sort of significance.  Like, I remember one case where the guy took his ex-girlfriend to Golden Gate Park because that’s where they had their first date or something.  He risked capture just to make that statement.”

Amy looked up at her.  “That’s what’s happening here, I know it.  Margaret is trying to make a statement.  I just have to figure out what it is.”

She noticed Tim walk by at that exact moment.  He popped in and asked everyone how they were doing.

“Spot the car yet?” Karen asked.

He shook his head.  “They thought they did, but the plate was three numbers off.  Imagine that.”

“Hey Tim, could you ask Mike if he knows where Margaret’s diaries are?  I’d kind of like to look through them again,” Amy asked.

He nodded and left to find the lieutenant.

Jeannie looked at Amy.  “What are you thinking?”

“Maybe the answer is in there.  Come on guys, help me work this out.  What’s a possible place that would be symbolic for my mother and Steve?”

Everyone looked around the room at each other.  Ben was the first to offer assistance.  “Start with why - why she took him.”

“Good, good,” Amy said.  “Well, she took him because she wants me to come home, or she’s mad that he’s preventing me from doing so.”

“And has she felt that way about anyone else in the past?” Ben prompted.

Before Amy could even think, Karen blurted out, “Roy!”

Amy’s eyes widened.  “Yeah...this almost mirrors that, doesn’t it?  Margaret hated him for taking her mother away from her, so she killed him.  She detailed the whole thing in those diaries.”

“And now in her mind, Steve is Roy?” Jeannie asked.

“I think so,” Amy said sadly.

Tim came back in with the diaries and handed them to Amy, who furiously started flipping pages.

“Is she on to something?” Tim asked anyone in the room.  Jeannie answered him by half nodding and half shrugging. 

Ben got up and started helping his cousin sift through the pages and pages of angry rants.  “Man, she’s nuts!” he blurted out, reading one of the passages.  “Who writes down a plan to make a body disappear?  She wrote the whole thing out!”

“That was Roy,” Amy told him.  “Go back some pages.  I think she detailed the actual...thing...before the field dump.”

Ben flipped back several pages, reading the text for clues as he went.  Finding what he thought Amy might be looking for, he handed her the book, pointing at a page.

She nodded.  “Good find, Benjy.”  She started skimming the passages with her finger.

“What did she write?” Tim asked.

“Exactly how she was going to do it.  Where, when...everything.”

Everyone stood or sat around quietly while Amy read.  Karen kept wanting to ask what she was reading, but Amy looked so intent on finding an answer, she didn’t dare interrupt.  

“The house,” she finally said in a whisper.

“The what?” Karen asked.

“The house.  Roy’s house.  She goes on and on about how secluded it was, and how there were no neighbors to hear the screams.”  She looked up.  “You suppose it’s still like that?”

“Where is it?” Tim asked.

Amy slowly shook her head.  “I have no idea.  She never says.”

“What if there are people living in that house now, and that  _ is _ where they were headed?  We could have a hostage situation on our hands!” Jeannie mentioned.

Tim stuck his head out the door and called for Mike and Garrett to come.  The two men rushed to the room.

“What is it?” Mike asked.

“Amy has an idea where they might be, but no one knows where the place is,” Tim explained.

“Where?” Mike asked.

“Roy Dillingston’s house,” Amy answered.

“Who?” Mike asked at the same time Garrett said, “Really?”

“Yeah.  Margaret’s reasons for killing Roy were the same as why she’s taken Steve.”

“Back to the scene of the crime, huh?” Garrett said.  “That wouldn’t surprise me at all.”

Mike turned to Garrett.  “Do you know where this guy's house is?”

The chief grudgingly shook his head.

“When did he die?” Tim asked.

“1940,” Amy answered.

“You know who might know?” he announced.

“Yeah, Lilly, but they must already be on their way here, because I couldn't get them to answer the phone,” Amy replied.

“I was thinking of Verna, the librarian.  She had phone books old enough that they had your grandparents’ address in them.  Maybe Roy’s in one of them.  Does it sound like he was from the area?”

Amy nodded.  “Somewhere around there anyway.”

Garrett patted Tim on the back.  “You’re definitely on to something, Son.  I’ll give Harriett a call, have her call Verna.”

Garrett left the room and Mike followed.  Karen looked at Tim.  

“You didn’t tell me before that your girlfriend had a name.”

“I didn’t want to make you jealous,” he replied, sticking out his tongue.

“Will you two shut up?!  This is not the time for levity,” Amy snapped.  She then went back to reading the diary.

The room fell silent.  “I think maybe I could use some air,” Jeannie announced and walked out the door.  Everyone else agreed, leaving Amy and Jasmine, who refused to leave, alone.

“What are you reading, Mommy?” the girl asked, getting up and taking a seat next to her mother.

“Some stuff my mom wrote a long time ago.”

“Why?”

“Because maybe it will give me a clue of how to get Daddy back.”

“Is he gonna be okay?” she asked sadly.

Amy sighed.  “I don’t know, but if I have any say, he’ll be just fine.  And if he has any fight in him...things will work out okay.”  She patted her lap and Jasmine gently crawled on, curling up and hiding her head in Amy’s shirt while she continued to read.

* * *

 

Some time later, Amy said aloud to no one, “So that’s what she’s after.  I should have figured as much.”  Then she chuckled.  “She completely underestimated me though.”

“Who did what?” Mike asked, coming into the room. 

Amy looked up and asked, “Did you find the house?”

“Verna’s still looking, but she’s positive she has the answer somewhere.  When she finds it, we’ll be heading out there ASAP.”

“I’m coming with you,” Amy said in no uncertain terms.

Mike shook his head.  “No, you’re staying right here.”

Amy laid the open book face down and covered a sleeping Jasmine’s ears.  “The hell I am,” she growled.  “The only way Steve will get out of this alive is if I go, so don’t bother arguing with me!”

Mike slowly sat down across from her and gave her a mild Stone glare.  “And just how do you figure that?”

“I’m going on what you would probably call an assumption, but I’m calling a fact.  The fact is, this crap is no different than what happened when Margaret killed Roy.  She killed him to prevent her mother running off with him and leaving her behind.  She’ll kill Steve for the same reason, only this time it’s her daughter she’s hoping to keep hold of.  So I sat here and reread every single twisted thing she wrote about why and how she did it. It’s like predicting the future.”

She forcefully shoved the diary in Mike’s direction.  He picked it up and started reading the pages she had open.  

“She did the same things to her mother that she did to me - guilted me into staying with her, lied to me to get me to behave her way, made me think no one but her could love and protect me.  I could go into detail, but now isn’t the time.  Just trust me.  She also said the same things about Roy that she said to me about Steve.  He’s a brainwasher, a womanizer, a liar...the only thing she did different this time was convince me Steve was dead so I'd give him up for good.  But all that name calling she does in there?  I heard the exact same garbage while I was stuck in that barn.

“And the way she’s taken Steve is the same as the way she got Roy.  Subdued him with some easily-obtained poison, tied him up in his house and tried to convince him to leave Clara.  He wouldn't, so she killed him.”  She paused before looking at Mike and adding, “But there's one big difference, Mike.”

He looked up from the diary.  “What's that?”

“A showdown.”

“A what?”

“Margaret got Clara and Roy together, just once, and tried to pit them against each other.  It’s all detailed in there,” she explained, pointing at the book Mike held.  “When it didn't work...that's when she gave up and went in for the kill.”

Mike looked back down at the diary and skimmed a few pages, looking for what Amy was referencing.  “And you're saying that she hasn't gotten you and Steve in the same room, so…”

“She’s waiting, Mike.  Waiting for me to show up.  She has to know that alone, she'll never convince Steve to leave me, so she took him to force my hand.  Force me to go looking for him, and when I find him, be so grateful that she didn't hurt him that I'll do whatever she wants.  It’s all in there, Mike.”

The two sat in silence while Mike read Margaret’s entire account of how she, fed up with the fact that her lies and physical altercations hadn't pushed either her Clara or Roy from each other's arms, formulated a final hail mary.  She held Clara hostage until Roy came to her rescue.  When he wasn’t so happy that Margaret hadn’t hurt his love that he would do Margaret’s bidding, she held them both and tried to wage a war between the two.  Unfortunately for everyone, Roy was better at convincing Clara than was Margaret.  This led to Roy’s eventual demise.

Mike couldn't help but see Amy’s point.  Though the people were different, the situation was exactly the same.  Margaret had tried kidnapping Amy, but that didn't work.  Now she was probably working on Steve, and when that doesn't work…

Mike looked up and saw Amy mindlessly stroking Jasmine’s hair and looking off in space, her eyes narrowed as if she were staring at the one thing she hated most in the world.  He coughed just to bring her back to earth.

“So do you have a plan in mind?  How are you going to prevent this time from turning out like the last?”

Not mentioning the gun tucked in her waistband, she still answered him somewhat truthfully.  “I'll give her what she wants.  I'll convince her that I've seen the light...that she's been right about Steve all along.  She'll be thrilled, and we'll walk out arm in arm, after which time you all will arrest her.  You will arrest her, right?”  On the last statement, Amy’s speech went from confident to apprehensive.

“Oh yes.  Between all of us here, we have enough on her to lock her up for quite awhile.”

“Good.  So see?  I'm sure Steve will know I'm just playing good cop/bad cop, and with Margaret behind bars, he and I can go back to San Francisco and live in peace.”

Mike closed the diary and set it gently on the table.  “I have to play devil's advocate here, just so you're prepared.  But what if she doesn't buy your act?”

Amy’s confidence come back tenfold - to the point where it worried and scared Mike.  “Oh, she will.  She's not the only actress in this family.  Plus, I've learned over the years which of her strings to pull.  I know exactly what she wants to hear.”

The two looked at each other a moment before Mike stood up.  “I don't want to agree with you...but I do.  I'll have to run it by the sheriff though.”

“I understand.  Do what you need to.  But if she's holed up in that house, I'll be the only one who can talk her out.”


	51. Chapter 51

**_Monday, May 27, 1974_ **

Margaret wore a hole in the wooden floor between the living room window and the bedroom door.  Her expected guest had yet to arrive, and her partner in crime’s impatience was wearing thin on her.

“You know, if we kill him now, we'll have more time to hide the body and skip town.  I already have new identities and identification for us both.  Stone and the rest of the Homicide idiots will never find us.”  Holloway stood leaning against a stone fireplace mantle fiddling with a handgun.  “One shot and it’s all over,” he said a bit too gleefully.

On her way from the bedroom - where she kept an eye on her unconscious hostage - back to the living room window to watch for her daughter, Margaret stopped and glared at her accomplice.  “That is NOT part of my plan!  We go by MY rules, not yours!  Nothing happens to him until she gets here, is that clear?”

Holloway rolled his eyes.  “You can’t honestly believe that she’s going to suddenly fall at your feet and leave him, do you?  She hasn’t yet.”

“His life wasn’t at stake before.  Hers was.”

“And that worked out well, didn’t it?” 

“I can’t help it if those freaks found her!” Margaret snapped as she looked out the window for the hundredth time.

“I doubt that even mattered.  She wasn’t giving in despite being starved and dehydrated, was she?  She never once said anything about leaving Keller now did she?  Your daughter would rather starve herself to death than give him up and go with you, even when she thought he was dead.”

That statement garnered a smack across the face from Margaret.  “Alright, so that plan fell apart.  This new one won’t though; it’s been tested.  She’ll do anything to spare his life; I know she will.  She may not have cared about her own life, but she cares too much about his.  She WILL save him.  And if you don’t like it, there’s the door.  I don’t need you anymore anyway.”

Holloway laughed.  “Woman, I have so much dirt on you that if I walk out that door right now, you’ll never see the light of day again.  Not that you will anyway…”

Margaret responded with her own chiding laugh.  “And all that dirt you have on me also makes you look guilty as hell, so don’t act so smug.  You bury me, and you bury yourself.”  She smirked and walked back to the front bedroom to see if Steve was still asleep.

This time it was Holloway doing the glaring.  He had a feeling she was right, and if anyone found his recordings of their conversations, they would misinterpret them and think he was a willing participant.  Not that he thought anyone would listen to Margaret or Mark Stilwell, the only two people who really knew of his persecution of Inspector Keller, but they would believe anything Steve said, which is why the only way he was going to get out of this was in a body bag.  

Margaret came back out to the living room.  “Don’t you worry; you’ll get your chance with him.  Regardless of what Amy does, you can have Mr. Keller after I’m done with him.  I don’t want the temptation of going back to him to be looming over her head.”

“And you’ll run right to the cops I suppose?”

“Why would I do that?  I want that asshole gone!  I’ll be grateful to you for the rest of my life.”  She paused and looked at him.  “Honest.”

“Mmm hmm,” Holloway muttered.  

She wandered back to the bedroom and returned within seconds.  “Isn’t that stuff supposed to wear off by now?  He’s still out cold.”

“Hell if I know.  Listen, I’m giving your little brat another half hour to get her stupid ass here before I go in and finish all this.”

Margaret saw the shovel leaning against the wall in the corner of the living room.  She grabbed it and threw it at Holloway.  “Your impatience is getting on my last nerve.  Make yourself useful and start digging a grave out back.  I won’t want to hang around here much after he’s dead anyway, so get that part out of the way.”

Holloway slammed his gun on the mantle, grunted, and headed for the back door of the empty house.  Margaret shook her head and looked out the front window again.  There was still no sign of Amy or anyone else.

“How dumb is she?” she wondered out loud.  “I left her plenty of breadcrumbs.”  She then sighed and headed toward the bedroom once again, but before she got there, she stopped and looked back at the mantle where Holloway had left his gun.  Thinking it might come in handy if either man got out of hand, she went back and grabbed it, carrying it into the bedroom and setting it on a rickety wooden table, one of the only pieces of furniture in the room.

Steve was still lying on the floor, handcuffed to a radiator, oblivious to his surroundings.  His head was laying against the wall while the rest of his body was sprawled on the floor.  To Margaret, he looked positively pathetic.

“What does she see in you anyway?  You’re not handsome, although I’m sure you think you are.  You reek of arrogance, but then I think all cops do, especially the desk jockeys.  You're all as bad as lawyers.”

She looked toward the door.  “He thinks you're so different from him, but you two are the same.  You both think you own the world and everyone in it. You both exude this disgusting confidence that makes stupid women swoon and dumb men fear you.”

Chuckling modestly, she added, “He may actually be worse than you, but at least he's come in handy.  You're just a pain in the ass because you don't sway so easily.  Him...he’s no more than a pathetic ventriloquist’s dummy.  Or perhaps a marionette.  Either way, convincing him to help me was entirely too easy.  But you...you're just as stubborn as Amy.”

She scowled at him and looked out the dusty and cracked bedroom window.  Just like every other time she had checked, she saw nothing but trees, weeds, and a gravel driveway that led to a hidden road.

Shaking her head, she looked down at Steve and muttered, “Maybe Amy doesn't care about you as much as she leads on.”

At the sound of Amy’s name, Steve stirred and repeated it.  

“Oh, don't tell me you wake up with her on your mind.  That's disgusting.”  Margaret wandered away from the window and grabbed a dusty wooden chair that was sitting in an opposite corner.  Dragging it over by where Steve was trying to regain consciousness, she picked up the gun from the table, blew some dust off the chair in Steve’s direction, and sat down, sitting back and crossing her legs to appear as ladylike as possible.

“You’ll be waking up saying some other bitch’s name soon enough.  Amy will hear you and hopefully confront you, but you’ll do just what Glen did and deny everything.  ‘You're hearing things, Dear.  I never said that.  I was probably just having a nightmare.  She's  _ just _ a client.  Why are you getting so worked up?’  I heard them all.”

“Maybe she was just a client,” the body on the floor mumbled before groaning at the ache in his neck.  He had heard the entire soliloquy accusing him of two-timing Amy, but opening his eyes was proving difficult with the massive pain growing in his head.

“Welcome back to the world of the living, Steven Keller.  I’m sure you know by now, but I’m Margaret Johnson, Amy’s mother.  Here is where I would normally say it’s nice to meet you, but let’s face it - it really isn’t.  And no, they were never  _ just _ clients.  I mean, do you have dreams about women who are  _ just _ victims or  _ just _ witnesses?  Wait, don’t answer that.  Save your breath.”

Steve opened his eyes long enough to unclearly see her sitting well beyond his reach.  Then he coughed and attempted to sit up, but his arm had gone to sleep from being attached to the radiator and his feet kept slipping on the copious amounts of dust and grime on the floor.  Giving up momentarily, he answered, “No, I don’t dream about women I meet while on the job, and I certainly don’t say their names in my sleep.”

“Oh really?  Then what was that that you just did?  My daughter was one of your victims, no?”

Steve groaned.  His stomach was cramping and his throat burned in a manner he had never felt before.  Swallowing felt like his esophagus was filled with razors.  Breathing was also proving to be more difficult than he remembered. 

“That...that was different,” he rasped, trying again to sit up.  He thought that it might alleviate some of his pain and make breathing easier.  The exertion on his abdominal muscles sent a sharp pain that seemed to reach both the top of his head and the end of his toes simultaneously.  

“Oh, the official song of all philanderers everywhere.  ‘That Was Different’.  Your motto is  _ It’s not what it looks like _ , isn’t it?”

“She wasn’t...she wasn’t really a victim…” was all he could think to say.  He was sick enough of people throwing the whole ordeal in his face.

“Then what was she?” Margaret snapped. “She was shot by an escaped murderer.  Are the police using some new definition of victim that I'm not aware of?”

“So is that why you hate me so much?  Because I got your daughter shot?”  He tried sitting up again, this time managing to work through the pain and nausea to get half his back off the floor.

“I didn't say anything about  _ you _ getting her shot.  Guilt creeping up on you?  You could alleviate that by getting out of our lives forever, you know.”

“Cold day in hell,” Steve muttered under his breath but loudly enough for Margaret to hear.

“There's that damn stubbornness.  You're worse than a brick wall in a hurricane.  At least that will eventually topple.”

She stood up and began wandering aimlessly. For the first time, Steve noticed the gun in her hand.

“So then why do you hate me so much?  What exactly did I do to you?”  

A wave of pain from his throat and nausea from his stomach hit him at the same time, causing him to close his eyes and try breathing deeply.  His lungs felt like they were on fire, so deep breaths quickly turned to whatever amount of oxygen he could inhale before the pain became unbearable.  He wanted to get to the bottom of her madness, but part of him wished she'd just shoot him and put him out of his misery.

“Oh, there are just so many reasons, Steven, I don't even know where to begin.  Let's start with your job.  I suppose in your own arrogant way, you're now thinking it's because I'm worried you'll leave my daughter a widow.”

“I'm not that naive,” Steve replied.  “I mean, you want me dead now, right?”

“Perceptive.  I suppose that's how you got where you are at such a young age.  Since you are so keen, why don't you tell me the reason then.”  Margaret sat back down, crossing her legs again, leaning forward, and letting the gun dangle in her hand in front of her.

“I wouldn't have a clue.”  He coughed again, this time hard enough to make himself lightheaded.

“You may not know this, but detectives and lawyers are very similar.”

Steve looked at her sideways.  “Prosecutors maybe.”

Margaret shook her head.  “No, all of them.  You all have this tenacity when it comes to getting what you want.  Not only in your job, but in every area of your life.  You've put so many bad guys away, and solved so many crimes, and won so many cases that you've heard how great you are a million times.  You're just so damn valuable!  Trouble is, now you know it.  You know you're a god among men and deserve to be treated as such.”

Steve rolled his eyes.  

“You know what gods and kings all want, don't you?”

Margaret waited for Steve to answer her, but he didn't feel like playing along, so she sighed and moved on.

“For your information, the answer is everything!  And not just everything - the best of everything!  The fanciest cars, the biggest mansions, the most beautiful women.  Anything less is unacceptable.”

Steve tried and was able to sit up a little more.  “You honestly think this describes me?  You don't even know me, and Amy never would have said any of that.”

“My daughter is blinded by empty promises and flashy objects.  Deep down, she's an exceptionally credulous girl who's too senseless to realize she's being hoodwinked.”

Being highly protective of Amy, Steve took great offense to Margaret's characterization of her only child.  He became so enraged that he ignored all his pain and discomfort, sat fully upright, and tried lunging toward the woman.  The handcuffs - and Margaret’s distance - were the only things that stopped him.  Not even the sudden sharp pain in his right shoulder and upper arm stopped him from trying an attack.

“My, aren't we sensitive?  See, I was right.  Lawyers don't like hearing the truth either when all they believe is lies.”

Steve lay flat on the floor, face down, with his right arm attached to the radiator behind him.  The dust he was now inhaling caused a coughing fit.

After that subsided, he looked up and growled, “If she's so stupid and gullible, then why are you so obsessed with getting her away from me?  Why don't you just let her go?” 

Margaret stood up, leaned down to get closer to Steve, and said softly, “No one leaves me, especially not for someone else I don’t like.”  She then slowly rose to her feet and returned to her chair.

“So how come you haven’t killed her yet then?  Or me for that matter?” Steve shot back, looking up at her.  “Isn’t that why Roy is dead?  And Jesse?  And your husband?  Didn’t they all try to either leave you or take someone else away?”

Margaret glared at Steve with both shock and disgust in her eyes.

Steve maneuvered himself into a sitting position.  “I’m a detective, remember?  You didn’t honestly think I wouldn’t figure all this out, did you?  Those diaries Amy found in the barn were a huge help as well.”

She kept her stare going for a rather long time before saying anything.  “I didn’t kill my husband,” she said in an unfeeling tone.  “Paul did that.”

Steve snickered despite the burning in his throat.  “Yeah...Paul.  Lemme ask you this.  You want me dead, right?”

“You’re in my way, and you’re ruining my daughter,” she stated matter-of-factly.  

“Mmm hmm.  And you think I’m just like your husband, right?  That’s what you’ve been going on and on about, isn’t it?  I’m guessing that you knew he had a mistress - or several.  Seems like everyone knew.  And then what, he finally told you he was leaving you?  Amy was gone, so he’d finally had enough of all the shit you put him through and decided to leave too?  So you had him leave this plane of existence?”

Margaret started laughing.  “With theories like that, no wonder San Francisco is riddled with crime.”  She continued to laugh.  “Sure, I knew about her, but she was a cheap, worthless tramp.  All his flings were cheap, worthless whores.  He got bored with their vapidness and always came back to me.  He would have this time as well.”

“Really?” Steve replied, highly doubtful.

She nodded.  “Absolutely.  His death was purely accidental.”

“Paul  _ accidentally _ shoved him into a wall hard enough to make his brain bleed?  And just what do you suppose made him so mad that he did that?”

“Got me,” Margaret shrugged.  “Glen hated him, so maybe…”

“Oh come off it!” Steve yelled.  “I’m gonna die anyway, so why don’t you just come clean and tell the truth for once in your life?  You confessed in your diary, so do it again.  Besides, why are you letting Paul take all the credit for such a brilliant plan?”

He watched her demeanor soften at the compliment.  Going for broke, he decided appealing to her ego might get to her.  Based on the smirk now developing on her face, Steve decided his gamble was going to pay off.

“It was brilliant, wasn’t it?”

“Absolutely.  You managed to fool everyone into thinking it was an accident for two years.  And even when people got suspicious, you still managed to come off as the innocent widow.  Having Paul not only do your dirty work but also look like the perfect suspect...nothing short of extraordinary.  Glen never saw it coming.”

“And he never would have, the ass.  He was so blinded by that harlot that I could have pulled a gun on him and shot him right there.  Since I’m such a fabulous actress, he had no idea that I was even the least bit distrustful of him.”

She stood up and started pacing around again.  “I probably should have just done it myself...I mean, I could have pulled off the grieving widow turned killer just as well.  But like you said, Paul was the perfect patsy.  All I had to do was tell him that Glen was making Amy move to San Francisco and that he’d never see her again.  All those years, lusting after her...gone.  A total waste.  He blew up.  Only problem was, I had to give him the idea.  Moron couldn’t come up with his own kill.”

“So why not the mistress?  Why your husband?  She was the one who brainwashed Glen...the one who made him leave you…”

Margaret turned and smiled.  “Just like you.  Sure, I would have prefered her, but that was too obvious.  Besides, Glen had outlived his usefulness.  He’d turned on me and was never going to change back.  She changed him.  All the others...nothing, but this one?  This one had some sort of voodoo.  She ruined him beyond repair!”

She bolted over to Steve and leaned back down to him, getting in his face.  “Don’t you see now why I hate you?  You’re doing the same damn thing to Amy!  You’re ruining her!  You put this spell on her to get her to believe that you’re her savior, and that her life is better off with you than with me!  But with her, it’s not too late.  I can still sway her.  She’s distrustful enough that I can get her back on my side.  She’s jealous of you, isn’t she?”

“What?”  Steve feigned not knowing that Margaret was referring to every misgiving Amy had about him and their relationship.

“She doesn’t trust you, does she?  She thinks you’ll eventually leave her for someone better, right?  Someone prettier, someone more stable mentally…”

Steve shook his head.  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Like hell you don’t!”  Margaret stood up and walked to the window.  “I bet you heard it from day one.  The poor girl...she never thought anyone could truly care about her.  Anyone but me that is.  See, I managed to convince her over the years that she was attractive, but not attractive enough, or smart, but not smart enough.  I made her realize that she was just average.  No, that’s not true.  I aimed for less than average.    

“I’m sure you’ve met that type before.  They’re socially awkward, quiet, don’t do anything to make themselves stand out, like wear makeup or nice clothes.  They’re not so repulsive as to make people sick, but they’re nothing worth looking at or being in a relationship with.  They blend in with the wallpaper.”

Steve clenched his jaw.  Margaret was now the second person to compare Amy to wallpaper.  He realized that every one of Amy’s insecurities weren’t just from inexperience or a couple of bad relationships - they were beaten into her.  He hadn’t brainwashed her, but someone had, someone who was supposed to be the one person in her life to do exactly the opposite.

“That’s how Amy turned out, because I made her that way.  She won’t want to leave if she doesn’t think anyone else will want her.  I did the same to Glen.  He was a bit harder since I got a later start, but I’d gotten enough into his head.  But then she came along.  Then you came along.  And both of you wrecked everything I worked for for so long!  Now I have to try and salvage the damage you did with your lies.”

“I never lied to her, not once,” Steve spat out.  “When I told her I loved her, I meant it, unlike you.”

Margaret turned her gaze downward.  “Excuse me?  Are you accusing me of not loving my daughter?”

“You destroyed her ego and self-esteem just so you could control her!  Yeah, I wouldn’t exactly call that love.”

She leaned over and smacked him across the face.  “Everything I did I did for love!  She knew that the only person who truly loved her was me!  Now she doubts that, and it’s all your fault!”

To add insult to injury, she proceed to kick him in the ribs before letting out a small scream and walking to the opposite end of the room.  Now his stomach, shoulder, and side were screaming at him.  He winced and tried his best to work through the pain.  The last thing he wanted was to show any weakness.

“You don’t love her.  You don’t.  You can’t,” she muttered, pacing the floor and waving the gun around. 

“Why not?” Steve finally asked.  

“Because she’s not your type.  Guys like you...they always go for the leggy ones, the blondes, the party girls who look like they just stepped off the cover of  _ Vogue _ .  Admit it...my daughter is none of those things.”

Steve simply let out a breath.  This was more tiring than all the physical pain he had suffered through in the last month.

“So why are you so hell bent on taking her from me then, huh?  You could have half the bitches in southern California, but you had to take my daughter.  Why?!”

Looking up, he narrowed his eyes and said, “You don’t even understand love, do you?”

“Of course I understand love!” she snapped.  “I was married for over twenty years!”

“Those two things aren’t synonymous.  Just because you tricked Glen into getting you pregnant so he’d have to marry you doesn’t mean you understand…”

“How dare you accuse me of that!  He married me because he loved me!  I wasn’t pregnant…”

“You were and you know it!  You applied for a marriage license in April of ‘48.  Amy was born in November.  Eleven minus four is seven.  Humans have a gestation period of nine months, not seven.  You were pregnant when you got married...and I’d bet anything that you did it on purpose.”

In a move so quick that even a trained professional like Steve almost missed it, Margaret raised the gun and shot in Steve’s general direction.  He managed to duck, but it didn’t matter.  The bullet tore through the wall above his head, splintering the rotting wood and sending wood shavings in a multitude of directions.

Margaret took a deep breath and put down her arm.  Calmly she stated, “It was just part of my persuasion technique.  But we’re not talking about me.  Now how about you answer my question.  Why do you supposedly love my daughter?”

Steve slowly sat up.  “Maybe it’s part of some persuasion technique,” he scoffed.  “Maybe she’s part of a larger plan I have to make the  _ Guinness Book of World Records _ for having the most girlfriends.  Like you said, she’s gullible, so she bought it hook, line, and sinker.”

Margaret started at him then started to laugh.  “Cute.  But really, why?”

“Why did Glen love you?  Or did he?  You think I’ll hurt Amy the way Glen hurt you?  Is that it?  Because there’s no chance of that ever happening.”

“Oh yes there is.  You’re a guy, aren’t you?  There isn’t a loyal one in the bunch.  My father wasn’t, his father wasn’t, my husband wasn’t, Paul’s father wasn’t…”  She started laughing again.  “My mother once tried to convince me that her boyfriend Roy was such a great guy.  Real loyal, didn’t have a wandering eye, wouldn’t smack her around...but the truth was, he was fucking my mother while his wife lay in this very room dying of tuberculous.  Sure, he was loyal...she wasn’t even dead!  I saw her myself right through that window!”  

Pointing at the window behind Steve, she continued, “She turned and saw me.  She was too weak to move much, but she stuck out her hand and mouthed, ‘Help me.’  And you know where he was, don’t you?  So sure, you’re just as loyal as the rest.  What will happen when one of those  _ Vogue _ models comes along and winks in your direction?  Or what if, God forbid, Amy gets sick?  Are you out the door and riding on the next ‘train’ out of town?”

Steve slid back down the wall, suddenly very tired of not only the pain but of listening to any more of Margaret’s insanity.  “You know nothing about love.  Nothing.  I don’t owe you any reasons why I love your daughter; you wouldn’t believe them anyway.  All you’ll do is keep thinking I’m some lowlife cheater like every man in your life was.  I can’t change that.  You’re opinion of me doesn’t matter anyway.  The only person’s opinion who matters is Amy’s, so if you want to know why we love each other, you get her in here and ask her.  And then you can shoot us both dead, because you won’t like what she says.”

Margaret approached the chair and sat down.  “And why not?”

“Because you’ll see that you’re too late.  You went too far this time...and she’s done cowering to you.  And the best part...I had nothing to do with it.  It’s all...on...you.” 

In the distance, both her and Margaret heard a door slam and heavy footprints headed their way.  

“I can’t believe you’re making me do this shit,” Holloway muttered as he walked in the bedroom.  “Did I hear a gunshot earlier?”

He looked over at Steve.  “Well, Keller, finally awake I see.  You must be a lightweight when it comes to handling poisons.”

“I see now how you managed to pull this whole scheme off,” Steve said snidely.  

“We were just having a friendly conversation,” Margaret added sweetly.

Holloway looked up from Steve and saw the bullet hole in the wall.  “I see.  Too bad I missed the target practice.  Keller always makes an excellent target.”

Steve chose not to beat around the bush.  “Since we’re all being so honest here in front of the soon to be deceased, how ‘bout you tell me why you’re so damn determined to ruin my life, Holloway.”

Holloway chuckled.  “You think  _ I’m _ the one ruining your life?  That’s all on you, Buddy.  You’re the one who can’t follow the rules.  I’m just doing my job.”

“Your job...it has nothing to do with your dead friend in Chicago?”

The sergeant looked at him curiously.  “And just how did you know about that?”

“If you were such a great judge of character, you’d see that Inspector Stilwell is easily swayable,” Steve replied.

“So you got to him, did you now?”

“Not me...Lieutenant Stone.”

“Ohhh...pulled rank, did he?  Figures.  He’s been learning from you.”

“What rank am I gonna pull?”

“Not that.  The arrogance, the pushiness...the thinking you’re better than everyone around you.  You’re just like my friend’s partner.”

“And you’re not?!  Ask anyone in the department, and they’ll all say that you’re the biggest pompous ass in town.  Everyone hates you.”

“I’d believe it,” Margaret added.

“Yeah, but I never got anyone killed.  He did…you did…  Guys like you don’t deserve to wear the badge.”

“Who did I let die?!” Steve shouted, lunging forward enough to hurt himself.

“Just this time?  Paul Carpenter.  You killed him in cold blood because he knew your secrets.  He knew not only that you were having an illicit affair with a woman who was part of an active case, but that in your so-called insistence of protecting her, you played right into his hand.  He could have buried you...but if he’s dead, he stays quiet and you live to see another day.”

“Right, because people are so willing to listen to a serial killer,” Steve said caustically. 

“Have an attitude all you want, but I know the truth.  You killed a man in cold blood to keep him quiet.  No witnesses, no problem, right?  But you realize that none of that would have had to have happened if it weren’t for you.  The whole fact that your girlfriend was kidnapped was because of you.  However, if you'd have followed protocol and taken her somewhere safe, he never would have found her.”

“Bullshit,” Steve spit out.  You’ve apparently spent so much time living in your own fantasy world where everyone but you is the bad guy that you believe your own fairytales in reality now.  After all, you are the only one who thinks that’s what happened, or that I purposely put Amy in danger.  I’m pretty sure that honor belongs to someone else in this room who put her in danger long before I came along.”  

Steve turned and glared at Margaret.  “I have a feeling Paul would have found Amy anywhere, right Margaret?  You knew where she was, didn't you?  You’d visited her the day before he found her, but what, you couldn't give him an exact location since you don't know your way around San Francisco?  Oh, but Karen knew...and you told him she did, didn't you?”

Steve snickered.  “You're a real piece of work, you know that?  And I'm the one being punished?”

Margaret said nothing; she simply rolled her eyes and looked away.

“So what, now you're blaming her for your ridiculous error in judgment?”  Holloway shook his head in disbelief.  “You know, you remind me more of a guy I went to school with than my friend’s partner.  Wanna hear the similarities?”

“No,” Steve said adamantly.  

“Let me tell you anyway.”  He sat down in the chair.  “This guy was what they call the big man on campus.  Into every sport, activity...lady.  He thought he was hot shit and made sure you knew too.  Son of a bitch got away with everything.  Asshole shoved me and a dozen other guys in lockers and whatnot all the time, and he never got so much as a slap on the wrist.  Got away with murder too...literally.  You wanna know why I chose to get into IA, Keller?”

Steve groaned.

“It was because of this guy.  One day I’m walking home from practice.  It’s night and there weren’t a lot of lights in the parking lot, but I see a commotion off in the distance.  It also sounds like muffled screams.  Being the helpful type…”

“Oh Lord…” Steve muttered.

Holloway ignored the comment.  “...I go over to investigate, and you know what I see?  I see this piece of shit trying to rape and beat a girl.  I intervene and try to capture the guy, but he runs off like a damn coward.  I go back to help the girl, and she’s dead.  I tell the responding officers what happened, and you know eventually happens?  They ruled it a fucking accident!  This murderer was the son of some jackass who knew people within the police department, and somehow he got the medical examiner to rule it an accident, and the cocky piece of shit got off!  Killed an innocent woman, but the next day he’s walking the halls like nothing happened!  That...that’s the kind of guy you are, Keller.  You get away with every goddamn rules infraction there is because you have everyone convinced you’re a fucking saint!”

Steve had had enough.  He was in pain and sick of listening to lies and baseless accusations from a couple of people who needed professional help.  So, against his better judgment but having a good feeling he was right, he blurted out, “You sure this asshole wasn’t you?  I can see you raping and killing some poor girl who wouldn’t give you the time of day.”

Holloway leapt up and kicked over the chair.  He angrily got into the pocket of his pants, pulled out the key to the handcuffs, and unlocked Steve from the radiator.

“Stand up!” he growled.

Steve didn’t move so Holloway kicked his legs.  “I said stand up!” he yelled.

“Or what?” Steve growled back, looking up.

Holloway put his hands under Steve’s arms and yanked him off the floor so easily, it was as if Steve weighed nothing.  The pain from his right shoulder intensified to the point the Steve moaned and got lightheaded.

“Oh, don’t be a fucking baby, Keller!  You wanna call me a murderer like a man?  Then fight like one.”  He then blindsided Steve with a couple right hooks to the face.

The last punch caused Steve to fall backward, landing shoulder first into the radiator.  He screamed as he felt the joints finally disconnect.

Margaret chose to wisely stand by the bedroom door.  She took to anxiously looking back and forth from the part of the living room window she could see to the bedroom scuffle.  “Where the hell are you, Amy?” she whispered. “This won’t work.  This won’t work at all.”

“Come on, Keller!  You want to see if I really am a murderer?  Huh?  You know no one will ever find you out here!  There’s even a nice hole all ready for you out back!”

Steve slowly and gingerly stood up.  The combination of the injuries and the poison was making him fade in and out of consciousness.  However, he was not about to let himself get killed by two people who should have never been walking amongst the living in the first place.  

Holloway got closer and began waving Steve forward.  “Come on, Sissy.  You don’t want me to tell Amy what a fucking chicken you are, do you?”  He then laughed.

“Dammit, knock it off, will you?” Margaret interjected.  “This was not part of my plan, and I’ll be damned if I let  _ you _ ruin it!”

Her pleas were ignored as Holloway continued to taunt his enemy.  “In fact, after I tell her, I’ll show her what it’s like to be with a real man.  She’s never been with one if she’s been with you.”

With a rush of adrenaline like he had never felt before, Steve lunged forward, knocking both he and Holloway backward fiercely onto the floor.  His energy was depleted and his dominant arm was out of commission, but he tried his best to punch Holloway hard enough with his left hand to make the man at least pass out.

“You touch her, and I’ll kill you,” he barked.

Being bigger, bulkier, and not injured or sick, Holloway recovered easily from the hard landing and shoved Steve off him, throwing the man to the floor.  “Not if you’re dead, you won’t,” he snarled before putting both his hands around Steve’s neck and squeezing as hard as he could.

Steve choked and gasped for air while he tried desperately to push the stronger man off and away from him.  Seeing the scene before her and knowing what would happen if she let it continue, Margaret did the only thing she could.


	52. Chapter 52

**_Monday, May 27, 1974_ **

Not one man liked the idea of sending a civilian into a hostage situation, but Mike managed to convince everyone that with a woman like Margaret, it was the best place to start.  He assured them that he would not hesitate to abort the plan at the first sign of trouble, and if anything happened to anyone, he would take full responsibility.  Amy later assured them that she may not be trained law enforcement, but she knew her mother and was not afraid to be the one to put her crime spree to an end.  The sheriff in charge wasn't initially thrilled with a bunch of out of towners taking over his case, but he couldn't ignore the fact that they knew it and the players better than any of his men.

This freedom allowed Mike to concoct the majority of the plan to extricate whomever was in the house.  With Amy’s okay, he decided she would drive to the house alone in an unmarked car.  She would then enter the house and try talking Margaret out.  When doubt was cast that a well-told lie would appease the woman, Amy gave everyone a short version of Margaret's past and why, if Amy was convincing enough, she would buy the snow job.  Amy even threw in a demonstration for good measure.  Mike was certainly more convinced that she could pull it off than before, but it was such a good job that he began wondering if she was unraveling.

Since Amy insisted she go in alone and wouldn't budge until she got her way, Mike decided to fit her with a wire so that he could hear her even if he couldn't see her.  When Amy balked, Mike gently but firmly told her wire or nothing.  She couldn't fight that, so she gave in, but soon tried rejecting having a policewoman put on the wire, which would be concealed under her shirt.  That also went nowhere, so in her desperation to keep Steve’s gun hidden, she had to quickly come up with a plan.

What she tried was pretending she needed to use the bathroom first so that she could go in the ladies’ room alone and hide the gun.  This time it was the policewoman who balked, telling Amy she could easily do that afterward.  

“But I really need to go,” she begged as she hopped on her crutches toward the restroom.  “I drank way too much coffee.  And I don’t want to go with that wire on me.  You never know who’s listening.  How embarrassing would that be?”

“This won't take long,” the woman insisted.  “And the device is off.”

“Sure, that’s what they all say.  Look, I won’t be long.  Please?” she whined.

The woman sighed and agreed.  Opening the door for Amy, she stood outside the door of the single-toilet room with her arms folded over her chest.

Once inside, Amy breathed a sigh of relief and scanned the room for a good hiding place.  The only thing she found was the small sanitary pad receptacle hanging on the wall next to the toilet.  The thought disgusted her, but she had little other choice.  The policewoman may have discovered the gun if Amy tried burying it in the regular trash can, especially since it wasn't very full, so she hobbled over to the wall and opened the lid.  The receptacle was empty, much to Amy’s pleasure.  To hide the gun - and make dropping it in the metal container as quiet as possible - she stuffed the thing with as much toilet paper as she could before making her deposit.

Pleased with the job, Amy flushed the toilet to maintain the façade and called the woman in.  Ten minutes later, she had the wire taped to her torso with the receiver attached to her waistband and the microphone clipped to her bra.  The policewoman explained its use and left Amy to get redressed.

“Is this thing on now?” Amy asked before the woman walked out the door.

She shook her head.  “We'll turn it on out here to test it.  Don't want to waste the battery.”

After she was gone, Amy said a small prayer of thanks.  The last thing she needed was having someone question what noises she was making pulling the gun out of the receptacle.  She had also decided that it would be easier to walk into the house without the crutches, so to counter the pain, she was going to pop as many painkillers as she thought she could tolerate - more noise she didn’t want to explain.

After she felt the gun was securely hidden again and that she was ready to face whatever was to come, Amy left the bathroom and went back to the conference room where everyone was preparing.  They had located Roy Dillingston’s old house outside of Washington, Nebraska, so another briefing of the plan was happening after which they tested the wire.  Before they headed out, Mike saw Amy hand Karen her crutches and walk away from her.

“Why did you do that?” he asked curiously.

“Do what?” Amy replied, making a face every time she put weight on her right leg.

“Give her your crutches.  She’s not coming with us you know.”

Amy half rolled her eyes and sighed annoyingly.  “There is no way I am walking into that house on crutches.  I may as well just surrender at the door.”

Mike stared at her.  “You think being on crutches will...what?  I don’t follow.”

“Make me look weak.  I have to appear stronger than her, or she’ll think she can walk all over me because she won.  Hell, she may think she’s won already, but if I walk in there like nothing is wrong, it will throw her off.”

“You're willing to possibly do irreparable damage to your knee just to…”

She didn’t even let Mike finish.  “Yes,” she said in an extremely steadfast manner.  “I would cut off my leg if it would save Steve, okay?  Now can we get on with this?  She may wait, but she won’t wait forever.”

Mike shook his head and grabbed Amy’s arm before she could get too far away.  “Hey, you have to be a hundred percent focused when you go in there, and…”

Amy cut him off again.  “And what?  You don't think I am?” she asked angrily.

“Frankly, no.  I think you're too angry and focused on revenge.  I get that you're mad, and I don't blame you a bit, but you have to go in there and act like your mother is just a suspect - not your mother.  If you can't put that aside, then I'm not letting you anywhere near that house.”

“Oh, she is no longer my mother, Mike.  I can guarantee that.”

“But she still did a lot to you, which makes this personal, and you cannot take that baggage in with you.  It’ll only lead to disaster.”

“Steve came and saved me, and he was pretty damn close to the whole thing!” she retorted.

Mike nodded.  “But look how that turned out!  You both were nearly killed, and he ended up getting suspended.  All because he took it upon himself to save you alone.  He was too involved and out for revenge.  I am not letting that happen again.”

Amy paused and looked at Mike.  “He was suspended?” she asked quietly.

“Yeah.  He's serving it right now.  He's a trained professional and still let his emotions dictate his actions, which got him in trouble.  You though...you're not.  So the trouble could be deadly.”

She stayed quiet and started thinking about how she would feel if she got Steve killed because of an ill-advised temper tantrum.  Deep down, she knew she didn't always think straight when she was angry, and sometimes she even got herself hurt in one way or another.  Once, when she was a teenager, she became so enraged over something her mother had said or done that she threw a lamp at the wall.  Instead of landing where she aimed, the lamp hit Karen - who was standing nearby watching the massacre - in the head.  She ended up in the ER suffering from a concussion.  Amy felt guilty about it for a month, longer than she could even remember what Margaret had said.  If she was capable of that kind of rage over something small, this mess could possibly lead to something even worse.  

Taking a deep breath, she decided Mike was right; she needed to focus completely on her mission, which was to get her mother out of the house, away from Steve, and into police custody.  Or _was_ that her mission?  If that was her sole goal, she wouldn’t need the gun, but a pretty big part of her couldn’t let go of the notion that she would need the protection.  This woman was a murderer after all.  What if she too had a gun?  Amy figured she had to have something to keep Steve there, and a gun would be the most logical.  Having no intention of walking into a gun fight unarmed, she knew she just needed to focus more on the actions and less on her emotions.  If not, she’d lose, and she was tired of losing.

She threw up her hands.  “Okay, you’re right.  I’m just saving a friend from peril.  That’s all.  No anger involved.”

Mike simply nodded.  He wasn’t completely convinced, but he did see the pretty convincing act she had just pulled off for the rest of the men, so he figured she could at least act her way through this.  “Then let’s get out there.”

Amy clenched her fists and started to walk toward the main entrance when Jasmine ran up beside her and pulled on her shirt.

“Mommy, where are you going?  Are you going to get Daddy?”

She looked down at the little blonde with wisps of hair in her face and her eyes red.  “I am, Princess,” she said, using Steve’s nickname for the little girl.  “I’ll ride in there on a white horse and save the prince from the evil queen.”

Jasmine smiled.  “And then we’ll all live happily ever after, just like Stefan and Amelia?”

“I sure hope so, Baby.  I sure hope so.  I think we deserve that.”

* * *

The ride to the old farm house off County Road 40 north of the small town of Washington was approximately 40 minutes, so it gave Amy’s mind a lot of time to wander.  Initially it wandered to the beginning when she and Steve first met.  It was sort of like a white knight saving a damsel in distress, but unlike the happy ending seen in most fairy tales, this one was heading for an ending fitted more for a horror movie.  

As a kid, she often wished a knight in shining armor would save her from her life by carrying her off to a land of happiness.  A bit late, but she thought it had actually happened.  Now though, she figured her typical bad luck was taking effect and this caused her to assume she was destined to live in a miserable aloneness for the rest of her life.  Tears started gathering in the corners of her eyes, so she quickly rubbed them before Mike could notice.

“Tired?” he asked.

His question startled her back to reality.  “Um, a little.  I don’t think I’ve been awake for weeks.  The pneumonia really hit me harder than most people my age apparently.”

“The stress doesn’t help either.”

Amy shook her head.  “No it does not.”

He nodded and drove a mile or so before speaking again.  “Hey, I know it may have seemed like I was a little hard on you back at the station, but…”

Amy put her hand up to stop him from continuing.  “No, I needed it.  I know I have a temper, and I know that it gets me in trouble sometimes.  The last thing I’d want is to get Steve…”  She paused and took a deep breath to keep from losing it.  “Don’t apologize.”

“You still feeling okay about all this?  We can go a different direction if you’re having any doubts.”

She shook her head.  “No.  It has to be this way, and I can do it.  I’m doing this for my future just as much as anyone else’s.”

“I can see that, but you’re not the only one who can stop her.”

“No...if you guys go in there and take her into custody, she’ll just find another way to ruin my life, even if she is in jail.  No, I have to put an end to this for good.  I’ll be fine.  I’ve sort of been preparing for this for years...this just pushed it to the forefront.”

Mike turned back to concentrating on following the deputy in front of him.

Moments later, Amy asked, “Have you ever encountered someone as nuts as Margaret?  I mean, you have to be a little off to kill someone in cold blood I suppose, but we’re talking about funny farm crazy here.”

Mike thought for a bit.  “Well, fortunately I haven’t run into too many...you know…”

“Escapees from the asylum.  It’s okay.  You can say it.”

Mike smirked.  “Yeah, well, no, I haven’t had to deal with a lot of suspects like Margaret who have rather unconventional reasons for the murders they commit, but there have been a few.  A couple years ago, we had a guy who was killing women - who all looked the same I might add - when they didn’t conform to what he wanted them to be.  See, he was trying to recreate a woman from his past.”

Amy made a disgusted face.  “That is pretty crazy.  He and my mom would have been good friends.”

“Every suspect is different, and their motivations are as varied as they are.  People have been killed to keep them quiet, out of jealousy, a deal gone bad, honest accidents...Margaret is just another in a long line before her.”

Amy shrugged.  “I suppose.  But I feel really guilty about everything.  This never should have been your problem.  It should have stayed in Los Angeles.  No, that’s not true.  It should have stayed here in Nebraska.”

“But it didn’t, so we deal with what we’re handed.”

“Still...I’m sorry I ever dragged you and Steve into this mess.  I’m sorry Steve was even in that cemetery, or that I was shot, or that I opened my big mouth about Paul…”

“Stop that.  Don't think that way,” Mike scolded.

“Oh, come on, Lieutenant.  You should be furious with me!  I've put your partner in more bad situations than one person has any right to!  You should honestly hate me with every fiber of your being and want nothing to do with me in the future.  In fact, I wouldn't blame you one bit if you highly encouraged Steve to find a new girl to date.  I mean, what other messes am I going to get him in?  I'm a total jinx, just like I originally thought.  Only I was wrong about what I was bad luck toward.”

Mike could see now just how bad this girl's self-esteem really was.  “You do realize that if I told Steve to find someone new, he’d disown me.  I've seen that boy through a lot of girlfriends, yet I've never seen him as enamored with any of them like he is with you.  And your mother is not going to change his mind, no matter what she says or does to him.”

Amy shrugged.  “Maybe before, but now...?  I'm sure he hates me.”

“Look, you may know your mother better than any of us, but you don't know Steve as well as I do.  He does not hate you at all.”

He could see that she was a tough nut to crack, so he tried a different tactic.  “Do you love him?”

“Desperately.  Crazy, I know.”

“Why is it crazy?”

She looked at him like he was the crazy one.  “Because sane people don't fall in love in a week.  They also don't fall in love with people like me.”

“People like you?”

“Needy, depressed, anxious, inexperienced, unsuccessful...you get the idea.”

“Alright, let's focus on positives instead.  What is it about Steve that makes you love him?  Why did it only take a week to fall for him?”

Amy stared straight ahead, pondering.  “He's caring.  I mean, he came to visit me in the hospital and not just to interview me about the case.  He came to check on me at home too.  It felt genuine, like he was truly concerned about my well-being.  And he’s patient.  I’m not an easy person to be around, especially now, but he’s willing to put up with me.”

She chuckled and shook her head.  “And for reasons I still can't understand, he's really good to Jasmine.  A freewheeling bachelor like him taking to being an instant parent?  I don't get it...but I love it.”

Mike turned and saw a smile on her face.  “But you don't think he sees that stuff in you and loves you for it?  He's not perfect, and he may get you into situations that will anger you too, but you'll still love him for those qualities you mentioned, right?”

She nodded.

“Then trust that it goes both ways.”

They looked at each other for a moment before Mike turned back toward the road.

Amy placed her left hand on Mike’s right arm.  “Thanks for being nice to me.”

Mike turned back to her and smiled.  “You make it easier than you think.”

Both turned toward the windshield and saw that the line of cop cars was stopping and gathering along the side of the road.  They joined the rest of the officers, who were gathering for assignments and strategies.  One deputy showed Amy where the house was - a mile down a gravel road - telling her she’d see the silver Nova sitting in front.  She breathed a small sigh of relief that she had predicted her mother's movements correctly.  Then the men spread out all around the house, getting as close as they could while also trying to make as little noise as possible.

Before she slowly got back in the car, Mike asked her one last time if she was okay with doing this.

“I’m more okay with that than trying to get into this car without bending my leg.”  Once she finally got seated, she looked back at Mike and said, “Honestly...it will be fine.  If I need your help, I’ll just say your name.  You’ll be listening, right?”  She then reached behind her, and without really thinking, partially lifted up the back of her shirt to turn on the wire.

Mike swore he caught a glimpse of something shiny that looked a little like the barrel of a gun, but it was such a quick glimpse that he couldn’t be sure.   _Where would Amy get a gun_ _anyway_ , he thought.  Shaking his head, he answered, “I’ll be all ears.”

He closed the driver’s door and told her to be safe before watching her slowly drive off down the gravel road.  Suddenly all the confidence that he had that this would actually work out without any casualties was gone.


	53. Chapter 53

Two men lay on the floor: one trying to breathe and the other trying to stop a bullet wound in his side from bleeding.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” Holloway shouted at Margaret.  “You’re supposed to shoot him, not me!”

“I need him; I don’t need you anymore,” she answered with little emotion.  She walked over to where Steve was barely conscious and not breathing well.  “What good is he going to do me in this condition, you moron?  She’ll never come back if he’s already dead!”

“She’s not coming back anyway, you dumb bitch!” Holloway yelled.  

Margaret wandered over to him and looked down.  “Would you really rape my daughter?” she asked calmly.

Still holding his side, he looked up at his accomplice and grinned.  “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Without a moment of hesitation, Margaret raised the gun and shot Holloway right in the heart.  “Now don’t say I never did anything nice for Amy, Steven,” she said, still looking down at the lifeless body.

Steve merely groaned.

“Great.  Now I’m going to have to get rid of two bodies.  I hope that hole is big enough,” she said, walking out of the bedroom and toward the back of the house.

* * *

If it hadn’t been for the silver Nova sitting out front, Amy would have completely missed the house.  Not only was it surrounded by a miniature forest, but it was also encapsulated in overgrown weeds and shrubbery.  Plus, it was severely dilapidated and didn’t really resemble a house.  She was glad she was driving slowly enough that she didn’t pass it altogether.  

Pulling in the driveway and turning off the car, Amy took a deep breath and hoped that Mike couldn’t hear how fast her heart was beating.  Before she got a chance to open the door, she heard what sounded like a gunshot.  She jumped and sat still for a minute, watching and listening for someone.  No one came out of the house, and there were no more shots, so she carefully opened the car door, still listening intently for anything but nature.  

Slowly, and while leaning on the cars, she walked to the house.  The pain pills were working and walking didn’t hurt as bad, but they were making her quite drowsy.  She kept taking in deep breaths and shaking her head to clear the fog that was developing.   _Stay awake_ , she told herself.   _You have to get this done_.

After what seemed like a solid five minutes, she reached the three steps up to the house.  Looking down, she saw they looked anything but solid, and the last thing she needed was to step on one and fall through it, so she took the steps even more slowly than the walk, putting her good leg on the step and testing it first.  Another five minutes past before she hit the front door of the house.

She turned the rickety door handle and swung open the door.  Inside she saw nothing but an empty living room and a lot of dust.  Poking her head in, she also saw no people.  “God, don’t let it be empty,” she muttered.

* * *

“Anything?” a deputy asked Mike, who was sitting in a car just a ways down the road from the house.  They were as far away as they could get and still be within range of Amy’s wire.

“I think she just said, ‘God, don’t let it be empty.’ ”  

“What do we do if no one’s there?”

Mike shook his head.  “I don’t know.  But if that car is still there, they couldn’t have gone far.”

* * *

Taking small steps while hanging onto the wall, Amy looked for any sign of life.  There were footprints in the dust, so someone had to have been there; she just hoped it wasn’t squatters.

Eventually she made it to a door on her right that was open a jar.  Listening before entering, she thought she heard breathing, but it didn’t sound normal.  She pushed the door open and first saw Sergeant Holloway dead on the floor.

“Son of a bitch,” she uttered without a thought to the fact that Mike could hear her.  “What the hell is he even doing here?” she said even louder, walking over to him.  

Standing over his body and seeing the large blood pool on his chest, she said into her chest, “That jerk Internal Affairs guy Holloway is here and he’s dead, Mike.  Like, he’s bleeding all over the floor.”

* * *

Mike let out a breath.  “Well, that either complicates things, or makes them easier.”  He turned to the deputy and told him that he’d better call the sheriff.  

* * *

“A...Am…” Steve tried to say behind her, but between being choked and still suffering the side effects of the refrigerant poisoning, he couldn't take in enough air.

Amy swung around and saw the love of her life laying on the floor looking only slightly better than Holloway.  “Oh shit...what did they do to you?!”

He just moaned, the pain from his shoulder and the lack of oxygen becoming too much.

“Hey, hey...hold on.  Stay with me, Baby.”  Realizing that it would be easier if she were on the floor with him, she looked around for anything that could help her get on the floor.

“Thanks a lot, Paul,” she muttered angrily at the fact that if it hadn’t been for him, she would be able to use her leg normally.  Seeing the chair, which was knocked off to the side during the scuffle, she hobbled over to it and stared at it as if it was going to tell her how it was going to help.

“Wait...what if I tried a plié?  I could probably pull off a one-legged plié.”  With her hands on the chair, she slowly bent her left leg while letting her right leg slide off to the side.  Unfortunately, she bent the chair back too far as she leaned on it, and it tipped backward, causing her to fall the rest of the way and land on her rear end with a hard thud.

“Shiiiiiiiiiiitttttt!” she screamed in pain as her right leg bounced off the wooden floor.  No pain pills on earth could have blocked the pain that came from her knee.  After beating the floor to work through the pain, she maneuvered herself around so that she could scoot toward Steve.

* * *

“What the hell is she doing?” Mike said out loud.  “Why couldn’t we have made this thing two-way?  We’re gonna need more than one ambulance, I’m afraid.”

* * *

“Oh Jesus...what did they do to you?” Amy blubbered, looking at the bruises already developing on Steve’s face.  

“He...he did…” was all he could get out.

“Holloway did this to you?  What on earth for?”

“I...I’ll tell...you...later...okay?”

“Of course, Baby, of course.”  She put her hands on his face.  “Honey, Mike can hear us, so I’m gonna get you out of here real quick, okay?”

“Mike, he’s really hurt.  We have to get him out of here,” she told the microphone in her shirt before turning her attention back to Steve.  “Where does it hurt?”

He shook his head back and forth.  “Shoulder...I think…”

She looked at the shoulder he was favoring and didn’t see any blood.  “Shhh.  Let me do the talking.  You think it’s dislocated maybe?”

“Mmm hmm.  And...my throat…he…”

She looked closer at his throat and could clearly see the red marks made by Holloway’s hands.  “He tried choking you?”

“Mmm hmm.  And…”

Amy put her fingers on Steve’s lips.  “Don’t say any more, okay?  Do you know where Margaret is?”

He shook his head.

She sat and tried to come up with a quick way to get out of the house before Margaret knew they were there.  “Well, look, this place is surrounded by I think every cop in Omaha, so we’re gonna get you out of here.  Mike, get in here while Margaret’s gone!”

“I don’t think so, Honey,” a voice said behind her.  She also felt something pressed into the back of her head.  “I think everyone is going to stay right here.”

Amy became instantly livid.  She narrowed her eyes to slits and slowly turned her head toward her mother.  “Is that right?  And who’s gonna make me?”

“Oh, please, Dear.  You don’t want me to do to your precious Steven what I did to that rat bastard, do you?” she asked, pointing her head back toward Holloway.  “You leave, you ruin my plan.  You ruin my plan, I kill him.  Now, give me the little wire you’re wearing.”

* * *

“She needs us in there,” Mike said hurriedly, but before the deputy could get on the radio, he stopped the young man by grabbing his arm.

* * *

Amy tried to play dumb.  “What?  What wire?”

Margaret rolled her eyes.  “I’m your mother; I know when you’re lying.  You were talking to someone named Mike.  His partner, right?  I met him in the hospital.  Gruff, angry man.  You think he’s going to come in and rescue you?  Because I don’t think so; not until I get what I want.  Now give me the wire.”  

While still holding the gun on her daughter, Margaret put out her other hand for the wire.  Amy simply stared at her.

“What if I refuse?” she asked arrogantly.

Margaret moved the gun to Steve and shot the floor only inches from his right side.  The noise made both Steve and Amy jump, which made Steve again moan in pain and drift in and out of consciousness.

“Next time I won’t miss,” was all Margaret said.

Amy gulped.  “Mike, don’t worry.  She just shot at the floor.  We’ll be fine, okay?  I’ll...uh, talk to you when I get out.”

Without taking her eyes off her mother, Amy reached around and grabbed the device off her waistband, reached into her shirt and untaped and unclipped the microphone, and handed the whole thing to Margaret.  What she did not do was turn off the unit, and she prayed Margaret didn’t realize.

Margaret didn’t even look at the device in her hand; she simply threw it on the floor beside her.  As it hit the floorboards, Amy hoped it was resilient enough to not break.

* * *

“Wait a minute.”  Mike listened to the exchange between Margaret and Amy and reconsidered his next move.  “No, not yet.  Margaret has a gun and she’s threatened to kill Steve.”

“Then we should still go in!” the deputy insisted.

Mike shook his head.  “No...give Amy time to talk her down first.  I trust that she can.  She’s standing her ground pretty well so far.”

He jolted as he heard a loud thud in his ear.  He realized that the wire had been tossed somewhere and worried he’d backed off too soon, but when he could still hear Amy and Margaret as clearly as before, he felt relief.  Laughing, he said, “I’ll give her this - she’s one brave woman.”

* * *

“Well, aren’t you sweet?” Amy replied snidely.  “Just shoot all these people like you’re pulling weeds.  You mourn them as much.”

“Dear, don’t be snotty.  Everyone has a purpose in this world, but when that’s done…”  She shrugged as she trailed off.

“Purpose according to you?  I didn’t realize you were God.”

Backing off slightly, but still holding the gun on her daughter, Margaret said, “What’s gotten into you?  You were never so snide and sarcastic before.  Did he change your personality already?  I’ve known women who have changed because of a man, but…”

“SHUT UP!” Amy screamed, shocking Margaret.  “Just shut the hell up!  You think I’ve changed, huh?  Well you know what?  You’re right; I have changed.  And maybe Steve is a little to blame.”

“I knew it, but I’m glad you see it too!” Margaret stated happily.

Amy bent her left leg and, with help from the chair, pulled herself up into a standing position so she could be even with her mother.  Once on her feet, she began laughing.

“Did I miss the joke?” Margaret asked.

“Yeah, you missed a lot, Mother.  You missed the whole reason I changed.  You missed that it wasn’t as much Steve as it was you.”

“Me?!  Amy...”

“You turned me this way!  You made me hate you!  If not for your insane hatred of Steve and all the things you’ve done to keep us apart, I wouldn't have spent so much time reflecting on all the control you always had over me, or how much you tried to make me live your way.  I probably would have just let it keep happening even though it made me angry and miserable.  What other option did I have?  Hell, even with him, I may have still allowed you to guilt me or make me feel worthless.

“But you couldn't leave well enough alone.  You couldn't sit back and watch me ruin the relationship on my own like I'm so good at.  No, you had to play God and start pulling strings!  What, were you afraid that I'd wised up?  That he was too persistent?  Why?  Why did you do this to me?!”

“You know what you are?  Ungrateful, just like your father.  He was ungrateful for everything I ever did for him!  I gave him a nice place to live, a child, a happy marriage…”

“A...reason...to...stray…” Steve croaked.

That made Margaret mad.  “You shut up!” she screamed at him.

Amy looked down at her boyfriend.  “A reason to stray?  What are you talking about?”

“He’s not talking about anything!  He just likes to lie to you about everything, don’t you, Steven?”

“He does not lie to me,” Amy insisted.

“Oh really?  He didn’t tell you right away about Kathryn Castro, did he?”

“So?  He eventually did!  Better late than never.  How’d you know about that anyway?”

Margaret ignored her question.  “And you’re sure he’s being completely honest about it?  I mean, they did have a history...a pretty lascivious one at that.  You weren’t exactly around…”

“Because you made him think I killed myself!  Look, you little bitch,” Amy growled at her, “if anything had happened, it would have been your doing, not his!  It’s like you purposely wanted him to cheat on me so I’d leave him.”

“Not...her.  Holloway,” Steve corrected.

“Holloway?” she asked, looking down at him.  “But why would he care what I…”  She shot daggers at her mother.  “He’s how you pulled all this off, isn’t he?  He helped you try to destroy me, and you helped him try to destroy Steve!”

“Destroy you?!  You think I’m trying to destroy you?!  I’m trying to save you!” Margaret screamed at Amy.

“Save me?!  From what?!”

“From the nightmare I lived through for 23 years!”

“Oh, this ought to be good.  Just what nightmare are you referring to?”

“Being married to an ungrateful man like your father, that’s what.”

“Oh, back to this shit.  Please, explain how Daddy ruined your life instead of the other way around.”

Margaret shook her head.  “You have always been so naive.  You never saw what your father was really like, did you?  You never realized that he was a two-timing scumbag who wasn’t loyal to me our entire marriage!  I was out there trying to make a good life for him, and what was he doing?  Screwing every woman in Los Angeles!”

“What?!” Amy screeched.  “My father was NOT a cheater.  And where do you get off claiming that you were out there trying to make a good life for him?  He was the one who made all the money while you were gallivanting around the country pretending to be something you’re not!  Hell, you’re probably the cheater!”

Margaret once again pointed the gun at her daughter.  “You take that back.  Your father was the disloyal one.  He played me for a fool!  No one plays me that way.”

“What do you mean, ‘No one plays me that way?’  He didn’t do anything but tolerate you to a fault.  He should have cheated on you!  I would have loved to have a mother who cared about me!”

Steve tapped her on the leg, causing her to look down.  “He...did…”

Amy stared at him, and then did the same to her mother.  “You just told me he was lying, yet you just admitted that Dad was disloyal!  Jesus, Mother!”

“She...had...Paul…”

Knowing what he was about to confess, Margaret again threatened to shoot him if he kept talking.

Amy had had enough.  She whipped Steve’s gun out of her pants and aimed it straight at her mother.  “You let him talk or you won’t be around to stop him,” she threatened.

Margaret chuckled.  “Like you even know how to shoot a gun.”  She laughed more heartily.  

“Why don’t you ask Paul if I can shoot a gun or not.  Oh wait...you can’t.  He’s dead.”

Margaret’s jaw dropped, but she continued with the laughter.  “You killed Paul?  You.  No, Dear, your friend down there did.  You don’t have the guts.”

She was irritated that her mother didn’t seem the least bit intimidated by her.  “You willing to take a chance?  Fine.  Try and stop him from telling me what he’s been trying to and see where it gets you.”

Margaret shrugged and kept the gun aimed at Steve.  “Whatever it is is a lie anyway.”

“Mmm hmm.”  Amy looked down at Steve.  “She had Paul what, Steve?”

“Kill...your...dad.”  He closed his eyes and drifted off to unconsciousness.

Anger built up in Amy quickly.  Her face turned red as she processed what she had just heard.  Not only had her mother killed her teenage boyfriend and her mother’s lover, but now she had killed her own husband and lied about it for two years.  Turning toward her mother again, she slowly approached the woman, never dropping the gun.

“You killed my father?” she asked quietly.  “You killed my father and then pretended like it was an accident?”

“No, Paul did that!” Margaret insisted.

“You mourned him so well.  I honestly thought you’d die or go crazy or something.  You didn’t touch anything in the house for months.  There was a dirty coffee mug on the kitchen counter for almost a year because you turned it into a shrine of the last thing he touched.  But you didn’t even care he was gone, did you?  It was just all an act.  Why?  Because he went out on you?   _That_ was worth killing him for?  For leaving you…”

“Yes!” Margaret screamed.  “I gave that man the best years of my life, and what did he do with them?!  Threw them back in my face!  He was going to leave me for some tramp, and he didn’t even care where it left me!  I told him he’d regret leaving me, and you know what he did?  He laughed!  That son of a bitch laughed!  He’s not laughing anymore is he?  I got the last laugh on him.  He realizes now that no one leaves me.  He and I...we’ll be buried next to each other for all eternity, and he can’t do anything about it.  He can’t leave me.”

Amy had a million things to say, but nothing came out of her mouth.  It didn’t matter anymore.  She couldn’t bring her father back.  She couldn’t redo her past.  She wasn’t even sure she could escape her future.  Feeling completely numb, all she could do now was attempt what many others before her had tried - leave.

Quietly and emotionless, Amy looked at Margaret and said, “You’re wrong.  People can leave you.  I’m leaving you.”

“For him?” Margaret balked.  “For a man who will do the same thing to you that your father did to me?  Honey…”

Amy shook her head.  “No.  He wouldn’t do that to me...because I’m not you.  You tried so hard for years to turn me into another you, but we couldn’t be more different.  You berated me, controlled me, tried to dictate my life...and all it did was drive me toward someone like Steve, someone who actually cared.”

She looked back at his lifeless body and, after watching for several seconds and not seeing his chest rise, let a few tears escape her eyes.  Convinced he was dead, her mind went to the darkest places it had ever been.  With Steve gone, she knew she couldn’t make it.  She needed him to keep her sane.  She needed him to help her raise Jasmine.  She just needed him.  Now she was faced with the thought of walking out of the house alone, and it was too much for her mind to handle.  “But you took that from me too, all to keep me on your leash.”  Turning back to Margaret, she looked straight into her eyes and said, “But I’m breaking free...and you’re going to lose me forever.”  She then pointed the gun at her right temple.

Margaret gasped.  “Amy...what are you doing?”

“Finally taking back my life.  You can’t control me anymore.  I’m free.”

The woman reached out in an attempt to take the gun, but Amy took a step back.

“You can’t...you can’t do this!” Margaret begged.

“Sure I can.  You took Steve from me...so I’m taking me from you.  Maybe it will do you good to be all alone in the world for a change; you can feel how I felt my whole life.”

“You can’t do this to me!  You can’t leave me alone!”

“Listen to you.  Your only child, the one you claim you’re only trying to protect out of love, is standing here with a gun to her head, and all you can think about is yourself.  ‘You can’t leave _me_ .  You can’t do this to _me_.’ “  Amy shook her head.  “My life means nothing to you but as a puppet.  It’s time to cut the strings.”

“Amy…please.  Don’t do this to me.  What do you want from me anyway?!  Admit something?  Do something?  What?!”

“Let me go.  Let me live my own life.  Let me choose my own boyfriend, and my own place to live!  Leave me alone to live my own life without you interfering.”

Margaret stared at Steve for a while and saw what Amy didn’t - a breath.  He was alive and, with so many cops nearby, likely to recover, which meant that he would still be in Amy’s life.  She had to give him credit for one thing - he was a fighter.  He had put up quite a fight for Amy ever since he had met her, and Margaret didn’t figure he would suddenly back off now.  The only option she has was picturing him in Amy’s life forever.  But even though he had fought so hard for Amy, all she could really see was an evil man with cruel intentions.  Glen had been the same way with her when they had first met.  He’d made her feel better than any other person ever had.  He had been the only one who saw that a broken woman was repairable and worth fixing.  He promised her the world and gave it to her - for a while.  But it all disappeared, and Glen revealed just who he really was - a liar and a cheat.  A user.  Steve would do the same, and she couldn’t handle the thought of watching him destroy everything the way her husband had.  

“No.  I can’t let you stay with him.  He’ll ruin you, Amy.  He’ll make your life miserable.”

Amy looked at her mother one last time and said, “Then goodbye.”

* * *

Mike jumped and stared at the radio in his hand.  Hearing nothing, he shook it, thinking maybe it had gone dead.  Still not hearing anything, he twisted all the knobs.

“What happened?” the deputy next to him asked.

He continued to stare at the radio, silently praying that he would soon hear something - anything - but only silence came through.

Taking the earpiece out of his ear, he looked at the deputy and softly said, “Drive to the house.”


	54. Chapter 54

**_Monday, May 27, 1974_ **

Outside, it looked like the armed forces were converging on the little dilapidated house in the country, but inside, a pin drop could have been heard by a deaf man.  Two deputies had gone in ahead of Mike to make sure the place was secure.  When one came out, all he said was, “You need to see this.”

Mike’s stomach was a bundle of nerves, and his head was spinning.  Without a porch support beam to lean on, he would have lost his balance.  The unknown factor was killing him.  “How many dead?” he asked as professionally as he could.  

“Two, possibly three.  One looks like a suicide.  I’d have checked, but I think you should be the one instead of a stranger,” the man said before walking off to contact the coroner.

Still unsteady on his feet, Mike climbed the rickety stairs and entered the house.  The second deputy was standing in the living room.  He pointed Mike toward the bedroom.

Taking a deep breath, he reminded himself that he was, at least at this moment, a cop first.  He walked purposely toward the room and pushed open the door.  Inside, he saw a scene similar to others he had seen in his 25 year career, but this one seemed bigger, messier...more personal.  Very few crime scenes made the stoic Mike Stone close his eyes and take a moment, but this one did.

The hardest part was seeing the statue in the middle of the room.  There Amy stood perfectly still, staring at the mess that was left of her mother.  It was as if the shock had frozen the girl still in time.

In front of her lie Holloway, Margaret, and a whole lot of blood.  Behind her was an unconscious Steve.  Realizing he was the possible third, Mike bent down and checked the man’s neck for a pulse.  He let out a sigh of relief when he found a weak one.

After shouting out to the deputy in the living room to make sure an ambulance was on the way, Mike stood up and cautiously approached Amy.  She still had Steve’s gun in her hand, but it was now hanging by her side.

“Amy?” he said softly so as not to startle her.  

She answered, letting him know that she had been aware of his presence the entire time.  “She...she just...it was so quick…” she muttered.

Mike walked to Margaret's body and looked at what remained.  It was a clear suicide.  The gun was still in her hand, blood and brain matter on the wall.  

“I didn't shoot her, Mike.  I didn't shoot her.”  Her eyes never left the body.

He looked up at her and responded sympathetically, “I can see that.”  Going to her side, he asked, “Can I have your gun?”

“I didn't shoot her.”

“I know you didn't.”

“It wasn't my fault.  This wasn't my fault.”

Seeing that her mind was stuck from the shock, Mike carefully put his hand on hers and pried the gun out of her hand.  It was ice cold as he suspected.  He put the gun in his pocket and then tried to get Amy to go outside with him.

“I can't go to jail.  I didn't do anything.  I didn't shoot her.  I didn't…”

The shock finally fully took hold, and Amy blacked out.  Mike’s quick reflexes caught her before she hit the floor.  Scooping her up in his arms, he carried her out of the room just as a couple ambulance attendants rushed in the house.

* * *

She awoke to the sound of an unfamiliar voice murmuring gibberish behind her.  Everything was blurry and bouncing uncontrollably.  Something was stuck to her face, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get it off.  

“Hey, hey, leave that on, okay?” a clearer voice said to her.  Mike placed his hand on top of hers and replaced the oxygen mask.

Her eyes darted all over the roof of the small, windowless enclosure.  She thrashed about, kicking her legs and trying to sit up.

Two hands set upon her shoulders.  “Amy...Amy...everything’s alright.  It’s alright.  You’re in an ambulance on the way to the hospital.  There’s nothing to worry about...” Mike said calmly while trying to keep her down on the gurney.

“Is there a sedative you can give her?” he asked the attendant in the back.

The boy shook his head.  “We don’t carry that kind of stuff.  Even if we did, I’m not trained to administer it.  We’ll just have to try and calm her down some other way until we get to the hospital.  I can always strap her to the gurney.”

Mike sighed; he was not about to tie her down, but he was afraid she wouldn’t listen to him.  

“He’s gone, Mike.  He’s gone, and it's all my fault,” she wailed.

“Who’s gone?”

“Steve.  He’s gone.  It's all gone.” She kept tossing her head back and forth like she was fighting a nightmare.

“Oh, Amy, he’s not…”

“It's all my fault!”  She attempted to rip the oxygen mask off again, but Mike fought her to keep it on.

“Amy, nothing is…”

“I didn't know he’d be there...he shouldn't have been there!  I was too late!”

“Amy,” Mike kept trying to interrupt.

“They got what they wanted!  They both got what they wanted!”  She looked directly into the pupils of Mike’s eyes and said, “Evil won.  I let evil win.”

Against better judgement, Mike ripped the oxygen mask off Amy’s face and put his hand over her mouth.  “Amy...stop.  Just stop.”

The attendant wasn't pleased.  “Hey!  She needs that!”

Without looking at him, Mike replied, “Just bear with me, alright?  Amy, I need you to focus.  Don't listen to your head, listen to me.  Focus just on my words, okay?”

Wide eyed like she was facing death, Amy nodded as the attendant noticed his other patient’s eyes fluttering open.  Mike noticed this out of the corner of his eye.

“You’re all with me?” Mike asked.

She nodded, keeping her focus on the blue of Mike’s eyes.

“If I put the mask back on, you’ll stop fighting it?”

Again she nodded and allowed Mike to replace the mask.

“Good,” Mike said, giving Amy a reassuring smile.  “Now take a few deep breaths.”

She did as she was instructed, never taking her eyes off Mike.  He turned to his left and saw that even though he seemed to be fighting hard to just stay conscious, Steve was still awake and watching them.

After she had calmed down sufficiently, Mike said, “Now turn to your right.  What do you see?”

Amy turned her head and saw Steve looking at her through pained and tired eyes.  Under his own oxygen mask, he smiled at her.  She started crying as he gingerly reached out his left hand to her.  Taking it in hers, the two lay in the back of the ambulance holding on for dear life, letting go only when doctors made them.

* * *

Exhaustion had a firm grip on her, but if she kept her eyes closed and allowed it to win, she would have no idea what was going on or where Steve was, so she forced her eyes to remain open.  There would always be time for sleep later.  

Nurses breezed by, monitors beeped, alarms went off, but Amy was unaware of any of it.  She wasn’t in much pain even though her knee was now rather swollen, so her mind had nothing to concentrate on other than her worry about Steve’s condition and replaying the incident with her mother numerous times.  Her mind seemed insistent on trying to figure out the whole shooting, but no matter how many times the occurrence played out in front of her eyes, it never made sense.  Why did Margaret suddenly shoot herself?  Was it to get back at Amy for threatening her own life?  Was it to make a point?   Was Amy to blame?

Her thoughts were interrupted by Dr. Valenti, the ER doctor who had treated her when the Koestlers had brought her in after the barn rescue.  

“I don’t mind seeing you again, Amy, but this isn’t exactly how I had hoped it would happen,” he said lightheartedly.  

She yawned and then attempted a smile.  

“What were you trying to do, climb the bluffs?  I may have waited a couple weeks at least,” he joked as he stood next to her bed.  

“I wish,” was all she said.

He made a quick check of her vitals before telling her, “You know, I think you need to head back to California sooner rather than later.  Your luck doesn’t seem to be very good here.  Though I have to say, overall you’re a much better patient than many I’ve had, so if you do stick around Omaha, I’ll save you a bed.”

She let out a very breathy chuckle.  “Even though I obviously don’t listen when people tell me not to walk on my leg?”

He looked at her curiously.  “Let’s wait until the x-rays come back before I answer that.”

“X-rays?” Amy whined.  “I can’t stay here for all that!  I have to find Steve…”

“Ohhhh, that reminds me.  I forgot to tell you about this before, but our hospital runs a two-for-one program for referrals.  Refer a friend and get a medical procedure free.  Your choice of procedure too.  It’s a great program.”

Amy stared at him, not sure what to make out of what he had just said.

He laughed.  “It was a joke.  They told me Mr. Keller was your boyfriend, so, you know...you were making referrals...never mind.”

“Oh,” Amy uttered.  She then attempted a chuckle to make the doctor feel better, but her heart wasn’t in it.  Immediately changing the subject, she asked in rapid succession, “Have you seen Steve?  How is he?  Is he okay?  He’s not dead is he?”

“Whoa...slow down.  Don’t want to add an anxiety attack to your chart.  Yes, I did see him.  In fact, I took care of him, so you’ve come to the right man with your questions.”

“He’s alive, right?” she asked, panicked.

Dr. Valenti smiled and nodded.  “Oh, of course.  He looks a lot worse off than he really is.  I sent him up to x-ray to make sure nothing is broken in his shoulder, but I suspect it’s just dislocated.  He told me he was knocked unconscious by some chemical that I suspect was Freon.  His throat and nostrils are a little burnt, but he wasn’t exposed long enough to do too much damage.  It will bother him no more than a very sore throat from a bad cold I would say.  And his face looks like he went a few rounds with Joe Frazier, but I don’t think anything was broken there either.  So overall, he’ll be fine.”

Tears were running down Amy’s cheeks.  Dr. Valenti wasn’t sure if they were tears of relief or fear, so he reiterated, “He’ll be fine.  I won’t even keep him overnight.  I’ll send you both on your way with some nice painkillers and some advice to rest.  Honest.”

She nodded.  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“For worrying about someone?  Never apologize for that.  And your friend Mike told me why you were walking on your knee today.  I’d say that took a lot of bravery, so I can hardly yell at you for not following doctor’s orders.  By the way, how many Demerol _did_ you take?”

Tilting her head back, she simply looked at him.

“How else would you have even stood the pain?” he replied.  

She looked down at her lap and muttered, “Four, maybe five.”

“Two hundred fifty milligrams?”  He sighed.  “Do me a favor, Amy.  Don’t ever do that again, okay?”

Sleepily, she nodded and tilted her head back onto the pillow.  “Deal.  When can I see Steve?”

“I’ll let you know.  I want your x-rays first.”

* * *

Having fallen asleep without knowing it, when someone touched her shoulder, it flustered Amy so much so jolted awake in panic.

“It’s okay...it’s okay…” Mike’s soothing voice repeated as she tried to figure out where she was.  “You’re back in the ER, remember?” he reminded her.  She looked all around and then at Mike, who was smiling.

“ER.  Right.  Sorry,” she said, laying her head back down on this pillow and running her right hand through her hair.  “They already gave me x-rays, right?” she asked, confused.

Mike nodded.  “Dr. Valenti just came in and told me everything looked fine.  You’ll just need to keep ice on your knee for a while, and keep taking the Demerol when you’re in pain...although he suggests you stick to one or two at the most.”

She nodded, her memories of the last couple hours coming back.  “Have you seen Steve?  Is he alright?”

“I haven’t seen him lately, no, but don’t worry; I’ll keep you informed.  I’m sure he’s fine.”

She stared off in front of her, looking at nothing in particular.

“How do you feel?” Mike asked, taking a seat next to her bed.

“Hmm?” she asked as if she hadn’t even heard his question.  “Oh, fine.  There’s not much pain right now.”

Mike grunted and nodded his head once.  “Good, but how do you feel otherwise?  You’ve been through a lot lately.  Not just today, but over the past month.  Are you doing alright?”

She glanced at him through the corners of her eyes.  Mike could feel the annoyance and animosity she projected at him, but he was not the back down type.

“Amy, you watched someone die today.  It’s perfectly appropriate to feel terrible.  I’m just concerned with where your thoughts are.”

Shrugging, she answered, “I’m fine.  Doesn’t matter anyway.”

Mike gave her a concerned look.  “Of course it matters!  Why would you think otherwise?”

Amy stayed silent for longer than Mike felt comfortable with.  Was she heartbroken?  Irate?  Her facial expression did not lend any clues for it was nothing but blank.  Her eyes seemed far off in another galaxy and expressionless.  He had never seen her so blank.

Finally showing that she was still alive, she slowly turned to Mike and asked, “They think I did it, don’t they?”

“Who thinks you did what?”

“The police...they think I shot her, don’t they?  They think it’s my fault.  Even after she’s dead, she’s still screwing me over.”  Her tone was cold yet apprehensive.  “Maybe they’re right.  Maybe I did.”

Mike stood up and looked Amy in the eyes.  “First of all, no one with any sense thinks you shot Margaret.  The gun you were holding was not the gun used to shoot her.  It wasn’t even fired.  Second, the coroner took one look at the body and knew it was a suicide.  True, we don’t know what really happened in there, and you’re really the only one who does because Steve was unconscious at the time, but trust me when I say that no one believes you did anything wrong.”

Again, she was quiet.  Her only movements were to breathe in and out.  The whole thing was beginning to make Mike the nervous one.

“I may not have pulled the trigger...but…”

“But what?”

“I still caused it.”

Before Mike could dig deeper, two men - one from the sheriff’s office and one from OPD - peeked their heads in and asked if it was a good time to interview Amy for their investigation.  At first, Mike was going to tell them to come back later, but then he realized that they would make her relive the entire incident, which she seemed hesitant to do for him.  Perhaps if he heard what had gone on in the house, he would understand why she seemed so fearful that she was a murderer.

Waving them in, Mike sat back down next to Amy while the others stood at the foot of the bed.  Throughout the entire interview, Amy’s mood never changed.  She didn’t show any sadness, apprehension, or anger.  She answered the questions and detailed the situation as stoically as a robot.  Mike wondered if all this was a put on, or if she had already buried her emotions.  It was something he had seen in both civilians and police officers who had witnessed something tragic and horrifying; instead of releasing their sadness and fear, they bottled it up and pretended everything was fine.  Unfortunately, the emotions did not just evaporate.  Oftentimes, they came out in tragic ways.  For Steve’s sake, and for Amy’s, Mike did not want that to happen.

Once the investigators were satisfied with Amy’s answers, they said their goodbyes.  Mike turned to her and took her right hand.

“See?  Even they said you were in the clear.  You have nothing to worry about.”

She gave him a slight smile and looked down at her lap.

“You can’t hold yourself responsible for someone else’s actions,” he said softly.  “I see now why you think you caused all this, but...well...she was bound to do something like that regardless of what you did.  You were making her world close in, and she just couldn’t take it anymore.”  He chuckled.  “Like you said, she may just be trying to screw you over posthumously.”

“It’s just like her.”  Turning toward Mike, she said, “But what if I hadn’t put Steve’s gun to my head?  What if I had just walked out or something?  Would she have…”

“Why did you do that?  Did you intend to go through with it?” Mike asked, concern evident in his tone.

“I...don’t really know.  I honestly thought Steve was dead.  He didn’t look like he was breathing to me, and something inside me just snapped.  Like in that one second I decided life was not worth living if all she was going to do was take everything away.  But I also think I was trying to scare her into leaving us alone.  I just...I didn't expect that.  Maybe it was her plan all along.  Go out in a blaze of glory and make me feel like it was my fault.”

“We’ll never know now.  But please, don't let it consume you.  There is no answer, so don't upset yourself trying to find one.  No one blames you for anything, so don't blame yourself either.”

She nodded and smiled.  “I'll be fine.  I wanted it to be over, and it is, so I should be happy.”

“Hey, it's okay to be upset too.  You watched your own mother shoot herself in the head.  I've worked with some very hardened men who’ve seen some of the worst things imaginable, yet seeing someone take their own life rattled them to the core.  They kept it inside until it ate them alive.  I don't want you going down that path.”

“Mike, I appreciate your concern,” she said with a fake smile, “but there are only two things bothering me, and one of them was just solved.  Now that I know she didn't manage to punish me from the great beyond, all I care about is Steve.  Can you find out how he's doing for me?”

Sighing, Mike smiled and nodded.  Nothing was going to get through to her.  Before he left, he turned back and asked, “Is there anything else I can do, you know, with your mother's affairs?”

Amy looked at him quizzically.  “Her affairs?”

“You're her only next of kin, no?  You have no brothers or sisters, right?”

She shook her head.

“Unfortunately, the burden of burying her falls on you then.  Did she have a will?”

“I assume so.  My dad's partners would know for sure.”

“Why don't I call them for you then.  I can get the information from Karen.”

“You don't have to do that.  Like you said, it's my burden, not yours.  I'll figure it out.  I might remember what Margaret did when Dad died...after she killed him and pretended it was an accident.”  She started wadding up the sheet that was draped over her until it was in a tight knot.

“It’s not a problem.  I've been down this road.  Would you like to see Jasmine?  She keeps asking about you and Steve.”

Amy quickly shook her head.  “She doesn't need to see all this.  Just tell her we’re sleeping.  Please?”

Mike nodded and headed for the door to the waiting room, leaving Amy to stew over the memory of her mother's deceptions.

* * *

Having been discharged a half hour before, Amy sat in a chair next to a sleeping Steve.  He was working off a sedative the staff had given him in order to relocate his right shoulder and had been for the past two hours.  She was anxious for him to awaken, but at the same time she was nervous about how he'd react to her.  Sure, he had smiled at her and held her hand in the ambulance, but now that he was no longer in pain, would he be angry with her?  Disappointed?  Disinterested?

Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath, hoping the extra air would push those thoughts out of her mind.  When she opened them, she found Mike coming into view.

“Hey, Stranger.  Where have you been?” she inquired.  “Seems like you’ve been gone awhile.”

“I spent a lot of time talking to my bosses about everything that happened.  No one liked Holloway, but they sure are interested in his death.”  He sighed.  “What a pain.”

“Did Margaret kill him?”

“Sure looks that way, but I can’t state anything conclusive until the autopsy comes back.”

“I wonder why,” Amy thought aloud.  “I suppose he got in her way or something.  Why was he even there?  I thought the case against Steve had been concluded.  I mean, you said he got suspended, so wouldn’t that jerk have moved on to some other poor guy?”

“Amy...your mother and Holloway...well…”

“Just say it.  At this point, nothing would shock me.”

“They were working together.  She wanted Steve out of your life, and he wanted Steve off the force.  She managed to convince him that Steve was dirty and that he killed Paul so he could have you.”

Amy stared at Mike.  “She tried to get Steve kicked off the force...by telling that asshole Steve shot Paul unprovoked?”

Mike nodded.  “She did her research too.  Holloway was the dirtiest of them all.  Truth is, he was running from the Chicago PD, who had kicked him off the force for dating a suspect, telling her case secrets, and getting people killed.  Margaret used the flimsy similarities in that case and in yours and Steve’s relationship to convince Holloway that Steve was just as dirty as him.”

She was completely dumbfounded.  “He tried...because she said…”

“Don’t try to make sense of it.  Our department is trying to do enough of that now.  Once the mayor hears...heads will roll, and a lot of innocent men who lost their jobs because of being set up by Holloway will be out for blood.  Steve wasn’t the first good cop he had done this to.”

Chuckling, Amy said, “Leave it to my mother to open a can of political worms just because she didn’t like my boyfriend.”

Mike chuckled along with her.  “She didn’t do anything half-heartedly, did she?”

Amy shook her head.  “So he was here to what, help her exterminate the problem?”

He shrugged.  “I don’t know.  Does it even matter at this point?”

“How did you find all this out?”

“Inspector Stilwell found some tapes in Holloway’s desk.  He recorded all his conversations with Margaret.”

“Can I hear them?”

Mike took a deep breath.  He honestly couldn’t think of a worse idea, but he had a feeling Amy wouldn’t accept just no.  “Actually, they’re evidence now.”

“Oh.”  She turned back to Steve, who was stirring in his sleep.  “So is he in the clear now?  He didn’t do anything wrong.  He saved my life.”

“He wasn’t suspended for that anyway.  He was suspended because he went in without notifying anyone where he was and didn’t call for backup.  It had nothing to do with the two of you being together.  I imagine Holloway couldn’t find anything either, which is why he embraced Margaret’s plan.”

“Her plan...to ruin everything…”  Amy covered her face with her hand.  Mike wasn’t sure how she was feeling and thought it best not to push.  Seeing that Steve was waking up anyway, he decided to leave the pushing to him.

“Hey, Buddy Boy, nice to see you back amongst the living!” he said, standing up and walking over to his partner.  “How do you feel?”

“Like I was hit by a train.  Is all that you just said true?”

“Yeah, unfortunately so.  I’m sure we’ll discover all sorts of things as we untangle the web of lies.”

“City Hall is going to die,” Steve answered in a very raspy voice.

“That they will.  I’m sorry you got tangled up in it as well.  You may have taken the worst out of everyone.”

He smirked.  “Hey, someone’s got to.  Might as well be me, right?  Maybe I’ll get my picture in the paper now.   _San Francisco Homicide Inspector Cleans Up Entire Department.  Mayor sends him on a month-long vacation to Bermuda as thanks_.”

Mike laughed.  “In your dreams, Buddy Boy!  Look, we don’t need to talk about all this now.  We’ll be waist-deep in it once we get home.  Why don’t you just rest up so we can all get out of here and back to our much happier selves, huh?”

Amy laughed from behind her hands.  “Is that possible?  Is that even possible?  Do I have a happier self, or did she kill that too?”

Steve looked at Mike and asked for time alone without saying a word.  Mike left just as silently.  Steve then turned to Amy, who wasn’t even looking at him.

“Hey, you, look at me.”

She removed her hands but stared at her lap.

“Do you want to talk about it?  I wish I would have been awake through the whole thing…”

“I’m fine, Steve, really.  It’s done and over.”  She turned to him.  “All that matters is that you’re okay.  And you’re okay, so…”

“Amy, your mother shot herself in front of you.  I didn’t see it, but Mike told me that’s what happened.  That’s not something that’s just going to go away like a headache.  I want you to talk to me.”

“Steve, there’s nothing to talk about!  She was a deranged psychopath who shot herself in the head in front of her child!  That’s it!  It’s done and over.  I don’t know why everyone thinks I have anything more to say on the matter.  I just…”

“Okay, okay…” Steve said soothingly.  “We’ll forget it.”

“Please.”

Steve looked at Amy, and Amy looked at the curtain behind him.  “How do you feel?” he finally asked.  

She shrugged and muttered, “Fine.  They took the cast off my wrist.  Thought it was okay to take it off despite being on crutches.  I have to wear this brace for a while, but I can take it off to shower and whatnot.  That’s nice.”  She held up her left arm for him to see the brace.

“That’s good.  Did you do any more damage to your knee by walking on it?”

“No,” she answered, shaking her head.  “It’s fine.  Are you?  Dr. Valenti said you inhaled Freon?”

“I think that’s what Holloway used instead of chloroform.  I can’t say it’s a pleasant feeling.  Can I have some water?”

Turning to her left, she grabbed a glass of room-temperature water that sat on a tray.  A nurse had left it there in case Steve needed it after he woke up.  Amy handed him the glass and he carefully took a drink.

“I’m going to have to get used to being left handed for a while.”

Amy sniffed and rolled her eyes upward in an effort to keep the newly-formed tears in their ducts.

Steve handed her the glass and simply said, “Talk to me.”

She took the glass, set it back down, and asked him if he wanted some more water.

“No, I want you to tell me why you’re crying.”

“I’m not crying,” she insisted as a lone tear made a break for it.

“No, your eyes are just leaking.  Just spit it out, will you?”  His tone was angrier than he intended.

“See?  You are mad at me!” she snapped.  “If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have been beaten, almost killed, kidnapped…”

“You’re right,” he said forcefully enough that Amy jumped backward.  “I am mad.  I’m mad at your mother for every little thing she ever did to make you miserable.  I’m mad at how she controlled you your entire life.  I’m mad that she convinced you that you’re ugly or stupid or unlovable!  I am furious that she managed to turn a wonderful, loving, beautiful woman into an anxious and distrusting one.  And I’m kind of annoyed that she won’t be around to see me fix you.  I want her to wallow in the fact that all the work she put into turning you into a weakling was for nothing.  She’ll never see that deep down, there’s a women in there fighting to get out and show her true self.  So yes, I am mad...but not at you.

“Babe, I don’t care about the injuries or any of that.  I just care that you are okay.  You went through a hell of a lot more than I did.  Margaret told me that for years, she worked on deflating your ego so that you would think she was the only one who loved you.  And it worked.  You don’t believe a word anyone say to you, do you?  Even now, after everything we’ve been through together, you still think I don’t love you and that I’m going to leave, don’t you?  The reason why doesn’t matter.  Now it’s because I’m in the hospital again.  Before it was because your family is crazy.  Later it will be something else.”

Feeling outright attacked, Amy started crawling back into her protective shell.  She leaned over and rested her body on her lap, crying quietly into her legs.

Steve continued despite her reaction.  “And the only person to blame is your mother.  You wouldn’t think this way if it hadn’t been for her psychological manipulation.  You’d look in the mirror and see a beautiful, wonderful person instead of the, what, ugly, pathetic one you see now?  You’d finally see what I see every time I look at you.  But your mother made sure that wouldn’t happen, and because of that, I’m glad she’s dead.  She deserves it.  But no matter, because I’m going to fix you.  I am going to make you see yourself through my eyes.”

She sat up, her face wet.  “You actually want to attempt that?  Like I said, I’m not sure there’s even a happier me under this tangled, blue mess.”

“She’s in there...and I’m gonna find her.  It was my goal from the moment I laid eyes on you.”

She looked at him skeptically.

“No, really.  I stood there, watching you cry, and I told myself that I needed to meet you and be the one to make you smile...and dammit, you are not about to make a liar or failure out of me!”

He smiled and she tried to in between hiccups and tears.

“So you’re not sorry you latched on to me instead of trying for someone a little rosier?”

“What challenge would that be?  I can make any girl fall for me…”

Amy rolled her eyes and looked off toward the middle of the room.

Steve snickered and went on, “...but there’s no fun in that.  It’s kinda like hunting.  Ask a hunter what the best part of the whole thing is, and many of them will tell you it’s the hunt itself.  It’s the pursuit of something that’s possibly unobtainable.  If the deer stopped right in front of you and begged to be shot, there’d be no hunt.  No strategy, no challenge.  No, you want the smart ones who give you something to work for.  They try to outsmart you, you try to outsmart them, and in the end, if you’re lucky, you catch what you’re after.”

“So I’m like a trophy that you’re trying to kill so you can eat me and put my head on a wall?”

Looking at her peculiarly, he shook his head and said, “That's not exactly where I was going with the analogy, no.  You’re a prize, sure, but…”  He laughed.  “You’re so literal.  Point is, the things you have to actively chase are the things most worth catching.  The harder you have to work for something, the better it is when you finally have it.  You’re gonna make me work a lot to fully win you over, harder than I’ve had to work for anything else…”

“But you think it will be worth it in the end?” she interrupted.

“Like finding the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.  And you know, maybe we shouldn’t be mad at Margaret.  After all, if it weren’t for her, Carl Duncan wouldn’t have died, you never would have been crying in that cemetery, I wouldn’t have felt the need to cheer you up...we never would have met.  So really, it’s all her fault.”

She looked straight in Steve’s green eyes for the longest time, processing what he had just said.  When it settled into her brain, she started laughing.  Then, looking down at the floor, she said, “Take that, _Mother_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally, this was 18 chapters longer, mainly wrap-up epilogue, but I'm not putting it here. I am currently working on completely rewriting Pretty Little Jinx, which will affect this story as well, so this one is done. :)


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